


Shine Bright Like a Diamond

by Tisaniere



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Creepy Uncle Peter, M/M, No Werewolves, alternative universe, odd cameo by Prince Harry, polo, stableboy!stiles
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-11-27
Updated: 2015-02-18
Packaged: 2018-02-27 06:25:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 34,490
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2682482
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tisaniere/pseuds/Tisaniere
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Hales are a rich and powerful family steeped in tradition, and Stiles is about to become the Hales's new stable hand. </p>
<p>He <em>thinks</em> that he's up to the job. But he <em>knows</em> for a fact that he has a huge crush on the Hales's gorgeous, polo-obsessed son. </p>
<p>Shame that the guy has an overbearing family, a creepy Uncle and a complete inability to like another human being.</p>
<p>Well, Stiles is always up for a challenge. </p>
<p>_</p>
<p>Yep, this is that polo Sterek fic that everyone's been searching for....ahem</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Polo people

**Author's Note:**

> Yes ladies and gentlemen it's a fic about polo, horses and stableboy!Stiles that I am sure no-one asked for but has been lodged in my brain for a while. 
> 
> My first time writing in this fandom so be gentle. 
> 
> Few things to note:  
> 1) I tried to play polo once in my life and found it terrifying, so not really writing from personal experience, although I rode horses for years. If there are mistakes please forgive me  
> 2) I mention Stiles drinking in here but then his age may conflict with his ability to do that...I'm just going to roll with it...  
> 

The air smelt like sunshine, sweet manure and the earthy, dusty smell of horses. It was that mixture of scents that made up a sport Derek Hale had been obsessed with since he was first plonked on a horse aged 3.

The whicker of a horse pulled him out of his reverie. He was standing at the entrance of the changing room where he had just pulled on the gear he’d worn dozens of times before. The clothes felt as familiar as his own skin. His polo jersey had changed over the years to fit both him and the team he played for, but today it was the Hale family black. An inky, shadow-deep black with HALE printed in a muted silver on the back. The rest of his riding gear all held memories, mostly family ones. He had bought the white trousers he was wearing with his mother two years ago. It turned out to be the last day Talia Hale had been seen in public.

His eye-wateringly expensive (even by Hale standards) leather knee-high riding boots were a sixteenth birthday present from his uncle. They were hand crafted and fitted Derek’s calves and feet like a glove. His wrist guards brought back the rather painful memory of breaking his wrist in a match two years ago, but also memories of Laura feeding him ice cream when he couldn’t hold a spoon: the laughter and the melting ice cream all over his chin as she missed accidentally-on-purpose.

Derek grabbed hold of the final piece of his gear and slid the brightly coloured helmet with its stiff peak onto his head.

He scraped the sole of his leather boot against the concrete changing room floor and took in a deep breath. The other riders were out there, mingling. Today was the Hale Summer Charity Polo Match, so the atmosphere was a lot more relaxed than previous times he had played. The riders were supposed to rub shoulders with the guests before and after play and the aim was to make as much money for charity as possible, but there was still an undercurrent of competition. The Hale team - consisting of members of the Hale family, their riding staff and a few celebrity polo players - were a competitive bunch. The team they opposed were no doubt the same. Even though Derek could hear the chink of champagne glasses in the hands of his teammates and competitors, he knew for a fact that they would all only be pretending to drink. Lips would touch the Crystal glasses, but no Möet champagne would slide between them.

Derek secured his helmet and headed into the stables located down an ugly concrete corridor from the changing room. He knew that he was expected outside to press the flesh. It was his family’s event after all, and it was another hour until the match started. He didn’t even need to have his helmet on yet, but it felt good to have the tight pinch of the cap around his skull, the scratch of the strap against his chin.

The polo ponies were being kept calm in their stables but the sound of the arriving guests outside was making some of them excited. Derek passed a hand over the muzzle of his first pony for the game. ‘Pony’ was the wrong word to describe these animals. It was the traditional term, but these beasts were in fact horses, powerful and lean and able to move as one with the rider. They went through a few horses in a single game if it was fast paced, and Derek knew who he wanted to ride first. Lunar was a dusty grey with small patches of white dotted on his flanks and down his legs. When Derek rode Lunar it was like the animal guessed the meaning behind his touch of the reins before Derek even knew.

Lunar huffed against Derek’s warm hand and his ears twitched. Derek pushed his hand onto Lunar’s neck and felt the muscles dancing there as the horse whinnied gently.

“Not long now Lunar, not long,” Derek said with a small smile. He had long stopped being embarrassed about talking to horses. In fact, as a child his horses were his best friends. Horses were what Derek understood. Humans were impossible.

“Derek.”

The stable hands, who had been slipping around Derek making sure not to interrupt him, suddenly scattered like seed in the wind. Derek didn’t turn. He knew his Uncle’s voice from a mile away: it was the voice that tended to make anyone who wasn’t a Hale family member flee. Derek kept his hand on Lunar’s neck, watching the horse move his head to assess the newcomer. His ears flickered delicately.

“Shouldn’t you be out there shaking hands and showing off that Hale winning smile?”

Derek’s eyebrows knitted together at that tease. Seeing Derek’s ‘winning’ smile was about as rare as hen’s teeth.

“I’ll head out in a minute.”

Derek could feel Peter draw up behind him, feel the heat from him. He had probably been the only one of the players about to go on the field to have actually swallowed any of the champagne. Peter was like that.

“Not nervous are we Derek?”

“No.”

“You look it.”

Derek finally turned to look his Uncle in the eye. Those blue eyes that could charm, terrify or manipulate. Derek was used to them but that wasn’t to say that they couldn’t work on him if his Uncle wanted them to.

“I’m not.”

“Not feeling weak at the knees because there’s royalty in our opposing team are we?”

Derek smirked a little, “I’ve played Prince Harry before. I’m not bothered about it.”

“Well that’s good. I wouldn’t want a nephew who swooned at the sight of royalty.”

Derek turned completely and wasn’t surprised for a moment at how close his Uncle stood to him. Very close. They were roughly the same height these days, but Derek still remembered the days when his uncle towered over him. In the grand scheme of things he wasn’t that much younger than his uncle, and when he hit his growth spurt in his mid-teens he had shot up to his Uncle’s height quickly enough.

That didn’t make looking directly into his uncle’s eyes any less of a game.

“No need to be nervous, Derek,” his Uncle chided him, one hand out to hook around his nephew’s neck. Derek knew what he was doing, knew that having his fingers there meant he could feel Derek’s pulse and all its kicks and jumps.

“I said I wasn’t,” Derek reiterated. He was just anxious to get it underway.

“Good,” Peter said after a moment. And then there it was: Peter’s winning smile. It was a Hale one, certainly, but Peter added his own edge to it. It involved the flash of the blue eyes and teeth and the muscles on his jaw flexed, “We can take them like we do every year.”

“I know.”

“Now _that_ sounds more like a Hale. So come on, people are starting to wonder you’ve got to.”

He clapped Derek on the shoulder and his fingers dug into flesh firmed from horse-riding, swimming and the gym. Not that any of that mattered. Derek knew that his uncle could floor in him in a moment if he wanted to. There was nothing about the feel of his nephew’s muscle under the pads of his fingers that scared Peter.

“Come on.”

Derek was reluctantly steered out of the stable - with a quick stop at the changing room to deposit his helmet back onto his hook - and then out into the brilliant sunshine of a late afternoon on the Hale estate. Derek squinted back against the light and made a mental note to wear a visor for the match later.

A pair of aviators were suddenly waved under his nose.

“Can’t have you squinting in all of these photos, can we?”

Derek put them on silently. He had no idea where Peter would have got them from, but his uncle had the habit of always being prepared. ‘I’m a Boy Scout who never grew up’, he was fond of saying. Derek had even asked his mother if Peter had in fact ever been a Boy Scout. She had, quite uncharacteristically, laughed. It wasn’t exactly the answer Derek had expected.

“Smile for the cameras, Derek. Make us Hales proud.”

Derek bit down on the corner of his lip and tried his best to show something of a smile as one of the few roaming magazine photographers politely snapped a photo of him with Peter’s arm about his shoulders.

This ‘pressing the flesh’, this endless smalltalk and meeting the ‘right’ people was more tedious than anything else Derek could think of. It made him so uncomfortable that he started to feel hot and itchy underneath his polo jersey. All he wanted to do was get on Lunar, get out onto the field, and play.

  

* * *

 

 

“Oh my god, whoa, hey, sorry about that. Mind the…oh, yeah, my bad.”

Stiles was trying his best not to get in his way and, yet, that was all he seemed to doing. He had been told to wait here by the entrance to the serving area for Scott to meet him when he was done. He was Scott’s plus one and he wasn’t going to get into the main tent without him. Even a good old dash of Stiles charm - at least he thought it was charm - wasn’t going to wangle him inside without an invite. Scott was busy outside for the moment and all Stiles had to do was stand there, perfectly still, and not get in the way.

“Oh my god I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

He was doing a pretty poor job of it so far. Why couldn’t he stand still, anywhere, and just not _do anything_? It was something his father had lamented for many, many years. Unfortunately at age eighteen neither of them could pretend that he was going to grow out of it. His limbs had a mind of their own sometimes, or at least that was what it seemed like to him as they knocked, flailed or just generally caused mayhem.

The two female waiting staff laden with champagne trays glared at him as they passed. He had clearly already got a reputation already, and he’d only been there ten minutes. He was sure they could make _more_ canapés, though, that was what the kitchen staff were there for right? And that tray of fancy drinks didn’t _all_ have to have skewers of fresh red raspberries in them, did they?

Stiles clamped his hands together and stuck them behind his back. It was something his Dad had told him to do time and time again.

‘Hands together, behind your back, take a deep breath, take a moment to calm down.’

Stiles did as the silent voice of his father in his mind dictated.

He managed not to trip, punch, distract or terrify any more waiting staff for the next three minutes, and then thank god Scott arrived.

Scott was wearing a suit too, but his looked like it had last seen action at his eighth grade prom. It was too short on the sleeves and ankles and Stiles made a grim promise to himself never to tell his friend what a numpty he looked in that suit.

“Hey Scott, looking good,” he said with thumbs up. It was a stupid thing to say because he had just seen Scott ten minutes ago out at the main entrance to the polo grounds. Scott still beamed back at his friend, his heavy duty camera banging at his chest.

“Hey, sorry about that. Had to grab as many guests coming in as I could.”

“Anyone interesting?”

Scott waggled the camera, “Prince Harry. He’s playing today, I heard.”

“Dude, nice!”

“Yeah well the magazine would kill me if I didn’t get a shot of him.”

They certainly would. Scott worked for the premier society magazine in the country, and they had gone out on a limb letting him come to the event as their sole photographer. They hadn’t really had a choice, actually, what with their Senior Photographer and then Assistant Photographer both coming down with a vomiting bug and no-one else on the magazine able to work a camera in the environment they needed. Scott was the man left standing, and he had invited Stiles because…well, Scott had one reason for it and Stiles had another.

Scott’s reason was because he wanted a friend at his side to give him moral support as he embarked on what was probably the game changer in his career. Screw this up, and he was going to be a picture researcher for the rest of his life. Impress his bosses with his coverage of the Hale Summer Charity Polo Match, one of the premiere events in society’s calendar, and he would shine.

Stiles’s version of why he was here was a little more cutthroat. Of course he wanted to help his best friend out on such an important day. But he was also here for the sport. For the polo. For the horses. For the chance to get a look in to the sort of job that he could only dream about.

“Ok, well I’m done outside so let’s go in. I need to make sure I get everyone on my boss’s list.”

Scott waved the bit of paper under Stiles’s nose as they chose a quiet moment in the flow of guests to head to the entrance. Stiles peered down at the names.

“I literally have no idea who any of those people are, or how to pronounce them. Apart from Prince Harry and the Hales.”

“I got Laura Hale outside,” Scott said conspiratorially as their invite was checked thoroughly by a neckless, humourless body guard, “Now I’ve got to get Derek, and Cora. And Talia Hale, obviously, I really, really need to get her.”

Stiles looked up at where the bodyguard was staring at them intently.

“Might wanna stop shouting about how you want to ‘get’ members of the Hale family Scotty,” he mumbled out of the corner of his mouth.

“Oh, right,” Scott said. He waved his camera at the hulking man in front of them. The bodyguard let out an imperceptible sigh and waved them through.

Stiles tugged at his shirt collar and then clamped his hands to his side. He decided that he looked only marginally better than Scott in his suit, but at least he had decided to hire one that fit rather than wearing one he had grown out of years ago. It felt uncomfortable and itchy and he was tempted to rip it off, but he didn’t think that a) that was appropriate when he was here to scout for a new job and b) it was going to do much good for the poor old dears at the table next to him to think that a male strip-o-gram had been hired.

Or maybe it would. He wasn’t sure what ladies of a certain age thought about pale gawky eighteen year olds.

The main enclosure for the spectators was sheltered by a white canopied tent. The decoration was all elegance and style, the money behind it clear although not ostentatious. Stiles never thought he’d be at one of these events in a million years. He had done some research and knew that the Hale family sold the tables at $5000 a pop. The money that this event made for charity was through the roof. In fact the idea of all of this money was making him sweat. If he calculated the money it cost for the table, all that food, all that champagne - my god was that Möet being passed around like it was coca cola? - and the polo ponies themselves, well he knew how much those cost, that must have been….

The numbers rattled around in Stiles’s head as he turned this way and that, calculating, noticing more and more - Jesus, what about that guy’s watch, that probably cost more than a house - and he didn’t even notice that he was behaving like an idiot until Scott clamped a hand down on his arm.

“Hey, Stiles, you ok?”

Stiles blinked over at Scott clutching his forearm in one hand and his camera in the other.

“Oh…yeah, I’m fine. Why?”

“You were either having a panic attack or you were doing that thing where you have to know or notice _everything_.”

Stiles grinned apologetically, “No, no dude, just…thinking.”

“Alright well, why don’t you get a drink or something? Our invite doesn’t get us a table but we’ll be gone before they all sit down anyway. I need to go and find the Hales.”

“Alright,” Stiles said, forcing his brain back on track, “Sure. See you later. Hey, good luck.”

“Thanks,” Scott said with a nervous laugh. He grabbed his camera in his sweaty hands and disappeared into the crowd.

Stiles took a glance around at the guests for a moment and worked out his next move. The only reason that Scott had been given a plus one was because the organisers must have assumed the photographer would need an assistant. It was certainly not so that he could start hobnobbing with the rich and famous. Not that he wanted to, mind you. But he still felt the crushing need to be as inconspicuous as possible.

Stiles grabbed a flute of champagne as a tray passed him, so that at least he had something to do with his hands. He had never had Möet before. It tasted acidly bubbly and thoroughly alcoholic. It didn’t exactly blow his socks off. Then again he hadn’t ever really drunk champagne before, so maybe he just needed to broaden his tastes a little.

Wait, was that Prince Harry?

Stiles clamped a firm hold on that observation, closed his eyes and took a breath. He couldn’t get distracted. He hadn’t told Scott but he had his own goals today, and he wasn’t going to let his over-stimulated brain get the better of him.

First, to mingle. Or at least look like he was mingling without actually talking to anyone, saying anything, or have anyone notice him.

He set off at what he decided was a determined ‘mingling’ pace and started to move between the small groups and couples chatting amiably. His ears picked up easy conversation about ski holidays and prep schools and other things that bore no relation to Stiles’s world at all. He drank more champagne, but not too much. He wasn’t stupid enough to get drunk at a time like this.

He found a good place to shelter by the fence, looking out onto the field where the match would soon be played. A few of the guests did the same every now and then, either making small talk between themselves or commenting on the condition of the turf, the outlook for the match. Stiles kept his mouth clamped shut. This wasn’t like watching baseball with his Dad, you couldn’t just lean over and join in someone else’s analysis at the most exclusive polo event of the year.

Stiles pulled out the sunglasses he had thought to grab at the last minute and pushed them onto his nose.

He peered to his right to try and get a look at the stables, but couldn’t see past the wall of decorative flowers and the huge HALE SUMMER CHARITY POLO MATCH banner.

A low-voiced announcer calmly told the gathered guests that the match would be starting in twenty minutes. Stiles caught a glimpse of Scott flying through the best trying to grab his last photographs of everyone.

“Is Talia Hale here?” a voice behind him murmured. Stiles heard the second person cough discreetly. He didn’t turn but he took a short step back to lean slightly more towards the conversation. Not listening in, of course, just stretching his leg.

“I haven’t seen hide nor hair of her. Last year they said she had the flu. I wonder what excuse they will come up with this year?”

“Peter Hale will no doubt have one up his sleeve.”

Stiles rocked forward on his heel and the couple wandered past him, oblivious to his eavesdropping.

He was trying to listen to the team list being read out smoothly over the tannoy when he caught sight of Scott talking to a small group towards the middle of the tent. Not just any  group: the Hales themselves. Stiles found a member of the staff with an empty tray to deposit his champagne glass on to and slid closer, determined to get a good first look at the Hales.

 

* * *

 

 

“Two people have already asked me about Mom.”

Derek hadn’t meant for it to come out as an accusation, but it did. Peter only glanced at him.

“And what did you tell them?”

“What you said. That she was recovering from routine surgery. Then they asked me what ‘routine surgery’ it was.”

“And did you panic? Say something you shouldn’t? Is that what you want to tell me, Derek?”

“No,” Derek forced out through gritted teeth, “But you said no-one would ask. That you’d _sorted_ it.”

“I said no-one _should_ ask because I was going to _try_ to get the word around before anyone did. I clearly didn’t. No need to jump down my throat, Derek.”

“Er, excuse me, Mr Hale? Can I?…”

Derek and Peter turned as one to the voice. A young man who looked around Cora’s age stood looking at them hopefully, a camera against his chest. There were only three photographers allowed into the event, and no-one - not even the Hales - avoided being photographed by them. Being seen in society magazines was something of a necessity. They had already had photos taken of _Larch_ and _Coast_ magazines, so this must the one from _Society_. Derek didn’t recognise the photographer - wasn’t that magazine’s guy a lech in his fifties with a perm? - but clearly his Uncle had made the same deduction.

“Of course. Laura, Cora.”

The two girls were standing nearby, also dressed and ready for the game, and at the sound of their uncle’s voice they turned on automatic pilot. They slid an arm around one another’s waists and Laura put her arm through Peter’s. Peter raised his right and squeezed it over Derek’s shoulders.

“Not at all.”

The photographer gave them a smile of gratitude then lifted his camera. Derek still had his sunglasses on and he was glad of it. He hoped it hid the expression in his eyes.

“Thanks,” the photographer nodded to them all, his smile suddenly brighter than the sun. Then he was gone into the crowd again.

Laura and Cora gave their brother and uncle a look, then turned back to their champagne and friends. Derek waited until they definitely weren’t paying attention and then turned back to his uncle.

“Don’t worry about it, Derek. I have it covered. Just concentrate on doing what you do best.”

Peter squeezed Derek’s arm and Derek had no idea whether the gesture was a comforting one or one of warning.

Further down the line of the fence Stiles saw the hand of Peter Hale on his nephew's shoulder too. He hadn't been able to get a clear vantage point, all he could see was the side of Peter Hale's face and the back of a head, who he assumed must be Derek Hale. He didn't realise he was straining on his tiptoes until he lost his balance and pitched forward, nearly bringing down an elderly woman bedecked in so much jewellery that she looked like a Christmas tree. 

"Sorry, sorry, I'm sorry," he babbled, righting himself. When he looked up again the Hales had melted into their own party. 


	2. Job interview

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stiles has a job interview...of sorts.  
> Derek is made to feel distinctly uncomfortable by his sister's tutor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am sorry about this chapter! I struggled over it for so long and in the end decided it needed to just go up the way it was and sod it. The next one will move the story on a bit more, but the ground work needed laying and I couldn't think of another exciting way to do it. So apologies! 
> 
> Thank you so much for your lovely comments and kudos so far :)

“Ok, so you’re going to have to explain this game to me again,” Scott said. He and Stiles had found a decent vantage point from which to watch the match: nto too close to the rich and famous to look like they were pretending to be one of them, but not too far away that Scott couldn’t lift his camera and take a good shot when it came.

It wasn’t close enough in Stiles’s opinion. He had worked on polo ponies at his current job at the Marshes Stables in Beacon Hills but had never actually worked at a match before. He ached with desperation to feel the adrenaline of the game behind the scenes. If his plan at today’s match went well he may get his wish sooner rather than later.

“I’m not doing that _ever_ again, Scott,” Stiles said, turning to his friends with eyebrows raised, “And I mean _ever_. Not on pain of death.”

“Hey come on, why not?”

“Maybe because I’ve explained it to you like a million times before. I tried to explain it to you in the car on the way over here and you looked at me like I was your chemistry homework.”

“At least tell me how _this_ match works,” Scott pleaded. He waggled his camera, “I have to pretend that I knew what I was taking photos of.”

“Alright, alright, fine. You can stop with the puppy dog eyes.”

Stiles grabbed Scott’s arm and pulled him in closer so that he could point out the players on the field.

“Ok so the captain of the Hale team is Peter Hale. There are only four people on a team usually but because this is a charity match, and they want to give the good folks a show, they are going to alternate the players in the teams every now and then.

On the other team Prince Harry is the captain, because…well, these people are paying at least five grand for the privilege of watching this. The least they can get is to see a Prince on a horse. Each section of play is called a chukka-”

“A _what_?”

“Chukka.”

“Oh _that’s_ what you were going on about in the car. I thought it was a character from Star Wars.”

Stiles’s mouth fell open, “Scott…I can’t even begin to explain how disappointed I am in you.”

“Sorry,” Scott said, almost like a question, wincing apologetically.

“I can’t believe you don’t know anything about two _huge_ things that I love. Star Wars and polo. Not that hard to find out at least a little something about them.”

“You don’t care about photography,” Scott rebuffed with a raise of his eyebrows. Stiles chewed that over for a second.

“Look why don’t you just _watch_ it, ok Scott? You’ll pick it up easier if you just pay attention.”

Stiles had no idea if Scott did in fact then pay attention. Scott could have grown another head for all that he knew because his focus was solely on the game: on the gleaming flanks of the wiry horses, on the riders cracking the mallets like whips, on the shouts amongst the teams. The smack of mallet against ball and the thunder of the horses’ hooves against the grass was punctuated by the chatter of the guests behind him and the polite cheers and applause when a goal was scored.

The Hale team were winning, and Stiles couldn’t help his gaze follow one of their players in particular: Derek.

Peter Hale may have been the captain but his nephew Derek was arguably the better player. He was the only one apart from Peter to not be switched out in the first half and he managed to keep up even with the one or two professional players - there for good publicity - when they joined the field. It was like he was able to make the expensively trained horse beneath him more quick and nimble than it had ever been before. He held the reigns easily but precisely in his hand, and man could that guy pull off a pair of jodhpurs…

The warm curve of his tanned arm below the sleeve of his jersey tightened and expanded as he raised his arm high to hit the ball. The handle of the mallet was a twirling blur in his hands and yet always steady, always on target. As if to prove the point Derek swung the mallet and made a clean, forceful strike that sent the ball flying towards the posts. The Hale team pounded after it.

“Is that Derek Hale?”

Stiles realised his mouth had been hanging open so he shut it with a snap, “Yep, that’s him.”

“I don’t know what’s going on but even I think he looks good at this.”

“He plays all the time. The rest of the Hales just learn it because, well, that’s what these kinds of families do. But Derek…it wouldn’t be hard for him to become a professional. His Dad was.”

Scott scrunched his nose, thinking, “I don’t really know much about him. How about you?”

“Know about who?”

“Mr Hale. Derek’s father. Do you think his Dad was any cheerier than his son?”

Stiles shrugged. He couldn’t stand any form of the stupid society gossip that was rife in this town, but even he knew that the only Hale son had a reputation for being a grump and a half. General public opinion was that Derek’s face would crack if he ever had to give a genuine smile. His public-facing smile for the magazines and paparazzi was more of a grimace.

Stiles turned his attention back to the field where the last of the players were trotting off, mallets swinging loosely from their fingers. “Whoa, Stiles, where are you going?”

Stiles grabbed Scott’s wrist and pulled him after him, “Saving you from messing up your polo etiquette. This is what happens at half time, everyone goes out onto the field and pushes back the divots caused by the horse’s hooves. Like this.”

Stiles kicked at a mound of loose turf and pushed it down with his foot so that it fitted neatly back into the patch of ground.

“That’s so cool,” Scott enthused. Only Scott could find kicking dirt back into the ground _this_ exciting. He energetically went to it, toeing in the divots as though it were a competitive game within itself. Stiles absent-mindedly stomped at the ground with one foot but he kept his eyes up towards the edge of the field where the players were talking in their teams. He caught sight of Laura Hale sling an arm around Derek’s shoulder, older sibling teasing younger, and then a flash of Peter Hale’s smile. He couldn’t see if Derek was laughing along with him.

“Dude.”

“What?” he asked, spinning to Scott’s voice. Scott was looking down at Stiles’s left foot. The one being twisted so deeply into the ground that it was creating a divot of its own.

“Oh, whoops.”

“Look, I’m going to go and take some more photos if I can. I just saw the other photographers heading over to the players so I’m going to follow them. You alright on your own for a bit?”

“Fine Scott, you go do what you need to do.”

Stiles was busy toeing in another clot of turf when he heard Talia Hale’s name mentioned again, this time by two women who were using polo’s half-time event as a chance to purr demure gossip at one another.

Who was Stiles kidding, that’s what _everyone_ here was doing.

“You would think that they’d stop lying about her _one_ of these days.”

“I don’t think that at all. These are the Hales after all. Peter’s quite happy to lie.”

“Don’t we know it. Seems he’s training his nieces and nephew to do the same. I asked Derek about their mother earlier and he said she had just had some ‘routine surgery’. Didn’t seem to want to elaborate on what the surgery _was_ , of course.”

“That would require the boy to say more than two words.”

“He’s going to have to if his uncle wants them to lie to save them all some face in Talia’s absence.”

“Speaking of faces, I bet she has been getting her’s done.”

“For two years?”

“Botched operation, perhaps?”

“Talia Hale never struck me as the sort of woman to care about how she aged. Then again her husband has been dead for, what, six or so now? Maybe she wants to look her best before she goes back on the scene.”

Stiles swallowed heavily. He felt distinctly uncomfortable with the direction that this conversation was going in. Thankfully the two women started to move away from him and their talk was replaced by the general hum of the crowd. Stiles forced a clump of earth back in with an angry stamp of his foot. As much as he loved the world of riding and polo - as close as he wanted to get to it so that he could work with some of the best horses in the country - it was this nasty, underhand gossip that made him hate it as well.

The crowd on the field was thinning now.  Everyone wanted a new drink before the game started and Stiles found himself following them slowly back to the tent. He gave one last look over his shoulder to the players and caught the distinctive black hair of Scott bobbing around between the helmets and mallets. He hoped his friend was getting all of the photos he wanted.

 

* * *

 

 

“Thanks Mr Hale.”

The kid - at least he looked like a kid - from _Society_ magazine beamed at Peter and then disappeared to take some more photos of the opposing team. Derek lifted a hand and released his helmet strap. It was a relief to ease the pinch of it for a while. He ran a hand through his hair, damp with sweat, and hung his helmet from one of the fence posts.

His uncle was busy talking to an old schoolmate so Derek used the chance to disappear. They only had ten minutes for half time but he had to get away from the hand-shaking and parading that his uncle was so keen on him taking party in. He was slipping around one of the horse boxes when Jennifer Blake ran right into him.

“Derek, I am sorry! Didn’t see you there.”

Derek moved to the side to let her pass, but she suddenly seemed keen to dawdle. Derek suppressed a sigh.

“Any reason in particular for you lurking around here Derek?” Jennifer teased. She was out of the uniform that Derek was used to seeing her in. In the weekday when she was working in the Hale house she always wore sensible pencil skirts and blouses, her hair pulled back and glasses. It was the sort of thing a private live-in tutor of a Hale child was supposed to wear, and something that her pupil Cora teased her about endlessly. Today however she looked much softer, with her curly hair let loose and a smart but edgy dress instead of the shirt and skirt combination. Her heels were even taller than usual.

“No, just taking a break,” Derek muttered. His younger sister’s tutor was nice enough, but she seemed too eager to make friends with the Hale children. Well, Cora and Derek at least. Once Laura established that she didn’t want to be your friend it became a non-negotiable fact. The same could usually be said for Derek but Miss Blake’s insistence with him never faltered. It meant that Derek spent big portions of his weekdays trying to avoid her around the house and when they were together a distinct discomfort came over him.

“I was just coming to congratulate you all. I’m impressed. I’ve never seen a polo match before. Is it always this violent?”

Derek shrugged. Normally this would be a cue for whoever was speaking to him to walk away but Jennifer didn’t bat an eyelid.

“It looks terrifying. What if someone get hit with the sticks? Do the horses ever get hurt?”

Derek cleared his throat. She wasn’t going to leave him alone until he gave her something, “That’s why we wear helmets. And why the horses wear wraps.”

Jennifer nodded at him with widened eyes, as though encouraging him to elaborate. Derek simply closed his mouth shut in that tight line.

“It’s so _interesting_ ,” Jennifer enthused. She put out a hand and squeezed Derek’s arm. Derek just about stopped himself from leaping out of his own skin.

“Oh and I’ve been dying to ask, what do you think of Prince Harry? Is he nice? Do you ever get to speak to him?”

Her thumb started to stroke his arm, the tip of her red painted nail just touching the sleeve of his jersey.

“I’d better be getting back,” Derek forced through his gritted teeth.

“Of course, I don’t want to distract you. Give Cora and Laura my love won’t you, and tell Peter he looks handsome in his polo gear.”

She flashed him a wink and then disappeared back down between the horse boxes. Derek barely suppressed a shudder at the idea of telling his Uncle that anyone found him handsome in anything. Even if he did feel remotely comfortable passing that information on he wouldn’t dare. Peter’s head was big enough as it was.

Derek checked his watch then pushed his helmet back on.

“Where have you been?” Laura asked him when he re-emerged back with the team.

“Nowhere.”

Her arched an eyebrow at him. It worried Derek sometimes that his sister was psychic. He didn’t believe in all that crap, not really, but Laura had an ability to second guess him that genuinely frightened him. When they were children she used to tell Derek that the eldest sibling could read the mind of their younger sisters and brothers. She was so convincing that from the ages of five to seven Derek genuinely believed that his sister could hear everything that he was thinking. It was a rough two years.

"I bumped into Jennifer," he finally admitted after some more intense staring.

Cora rolled her eyes. "Oh  _god_ what is she doing here?"

"She's your tutor. She deserves a ticket," Laura said diplomatically. 

Derek and Cora exchanged a glance. 

"Be nice you two," Laura added dangerously. She secured her helmet back on her head and turned back to the horses. Derek was knocked forward an inch by the thump of his uncle's hand between his shoulder blades. His hot hand was splayed across the exact area of Derek's tattoo, and for a moment Derek panicked that his uncle would be able to  _feel_ the illicit tattoo under his polo jersey.

Then his hand shifted and Peter was standing in front of him.

“Derek, we’re swapping you out,” Peter said. 

“What?”

“We’ve got to give the crowds what they came for, Derek,” Peter placated, in that way of his that wasn’t very placating at all, “James and Juan Martin are playing instead. They are professionals, after all.”

“It’s called the Hale team,” Derek snapped, despite himself. Then he clamped his mouth shut and left them to it. His Uncle was right, this was what this match was for. The people paid a hell of a lot of money to see them play, and all of that money went to a good cause. He just wished Peter didn’t look like he enjoyed the expression on his face.

Peter watched him process all of this and then flashed him a smile. Then his expression changed. His gaze wandered to just over Derek's shoulder and his smile turned gleeful. 

"Jackson. How nice to see you."

Derek turned to see Jackson Whittemore draw up to the small group. The rest of the opposing players melted into the Hale team with smiles and handshakes: it was a charity match after all. But Derek could feel the hatred rolling off Jackson in waves. The two of them had gone to the same school, competed on the same lacrosse teams and gone to the same boring society events since they are kids. Although neither of them had ever done anything specific to one another there had always been a burning chasm of disgust between the two of them. 

"Can we help you Jackson?" Peter asked lightly, when Jackson wasn't forthcoming with a reason why he was there. 

"The paps want to take a photo of us together."

"Sure you're not just spying on us for some tips in the second half?" 

"I'm not worried, Peter," Jackson smirked back at him. Then his eyes were on Derek, "Be seeing you in the next half, Derek."

There was a pause, in which Jackson clearly read Derek's expression like a book, "Or...wait, maybe not? Been sidelined? Oh, that's a shame."

Jackson gave him a satisfied smile and pushed past them to where the two teams were assembling for a photo.

"Don't worry Derek," Peter drawled, "In the next half I'll give him a whack with the mallet from you."

Derek huffed through his nose with a scowl.

* * *

 

Stiles leant forward to peer around the corner. The coast was clear. He jumped out into the corridor and scaled it at a brisk walk-jog. He didn’t have too long before Scott started to get suspicious. The game had finished ten minutes ago - a resounding victory for the Hale family team - and the hugely expensive meal was about to begin. Stiles had caught a glimpse of the luxurious tables and place settings in the adjacent tent. Scott and Stiles were not invited to that part of the event, and Stiles wasn’t sorry at all. He didn’t have the sort of upbringing that taught him what to do with multiple sets of knives and forks at the table.

Stiles had about ten minutes before Scott noticed that he was missing. Fifteen minutes tops. Any longer than that and Stiles risked Scott coming to find him.

But Stiles had come here with a goal and he was damned if he was going to let it slip through his fingers.

He found the stables by the smell and whinnying of horses. He stuck to the edges and the corners to avoid being seen, but none of the stable hands had the time or attention to notice him. In the chaos Stiles was able to sidle through it all without anyone shouting at him to get out. He let out the breath he had been holding and chalked that up as a victory.

Stiles wasn’t a very clandestine person by nature. For a start he was too vocal for his own good. It’s very hard to have a secret plan when you just can’t shut your trap. But he had had this idea for a while and had managed to keep it to himself so far. Not even Scott knew the master plan:

Stiles was going to quit his job at the Beacon County library - he’d never even wanted to work there in the first place - and become a stable hand. Full time. At the Hale stables.

At least that was his plan. A plan was very different to reality. And the reality was that although he worked part time at the Marshes Stables down in Beacon Hills, he wasn’t sure that somewhere as prestigious at the Hale stables would bother with him. He was sure that if he ever tried to send in a resumé or get a phone call with someone there he would be shut down. But he knew he was good enough, and maybe if he got a face to face meeting they would see that. He had worked with horses all of his life and he was desperate - huge underscore on the word desperate - to make it sometimes he did full time. Working at Marshes was costing him his sleep and his sanity, and it paid less than his main job at the library. If he carried on like this he would have to give one of them up. The Marshes didn’t want anyone full time and the way they paid him was begrudging enough already.

No, Stiles needed the real deal. A proper job that was rewarding, that was in something that he loved.

He hadn’t told anyone about it because no matter how supportive his friends and his Dad were there was a limit to their patience when it came to Stiles and horses. His Dad just passed his hand over his face with a sigh and tried not to let the words ‘you are just like your mother’ fall from his lips. Scott went into full on best-friend meltdown. Their conversations over the past few weeks had contained a _lot_ of fireworks over Stiles’s choice of work. Scott insisted that he understood Stiles’s passion but that he couldn’t work at the stables _and_ hold down a regular job, it was killing him. Stiles insisted that he could. This conversation then went round and round in circles until they got bored and solved the argument by killing things on Halo.

If Stiles’s plan went well they might be able to stop having that argument altogether.

But first Stiles had to find the right person.

It only took a few minutes to find him, much to Stiles’s relief. He was in a back office at the stables, one hand on a stack of papers on his desk which he was reading silently, and the other holding a glass of something dark and amber.

“Er…Mr Deaton?”

Alan Deaton, the man who had been responsible for the smooth running of the Hales’s stables for ten years, looked up from the papers. If he was surprised to see someone in a full suit standing in his doorway he didn’t show it.

“Hello there.”

Stiles’s brain seemed to trip over itself. He had had the whole scenario planned out in his head but it had actually involved Deaton _asking_ him what he was there for. But the man was just looking across the desk at him. His face wasn’t anything but wryly interested.

“Er, I…hi.”

“Hello.”

“Sorry, I mean…I’m Stiles. Stilinski.”

Stiles stepped forward and went to put out a hand, but then realised both of Deaton’s were occupied and so shoved it back in his pocket.

“I just, er…wanted to have a word with you. If you weren’t too busy?”

“Me, head of stables, busy after one of the most intense polo matches in our calendar? No, not at all, I’m free as a bird.”

Stiles opened his mouth, frowned, blinked stupidly, “Uh…is that sarcasm?”

“Well I assumed a boy of your age would be able to spot that mile away,” Deaton said. But he was smiling, subtly. 

“Sorry, sorry, I just…I was wondering if you had any job openings?”

“Jobs?”

“Yes, at the Hale stables. I’m already working at the Marshes but you guys have got some of the best horses around. I just…I’d just really like the chance to work there, if it was at _all_ possible. I don’t care if it’s, like, boot scrubbing or manure scooping or just the guy who makes tea but something, anything. I can’t afford to keep working at Marshes any more because they can’t afford to keep me, but…I don’t want to work in the bloody library all my life, I want to work _here_. In a stables. Preferably these stables. If…if I can.”

Stiles trailed off and felt his rush of adrenaline spike to dizzying, terrifying levels. His palms were sweaty and there was a very loud pounding in his ears.

Deaton looked over at the glass in his hand, then swallowed its contents in one go. Stiles tried not to gape, because he was pretty sure that that was very sting whisky the head of the Hale stables just knocked back like it was cough medicine.

“Your name again?”

“Er…Stilinski. Stiles. At least, that’s what I go by. You don’t want to know my real first name. No-one knows how to pronounce it. Not even me.”

Deaton put down the glass heavily onto the centre of his desk.

“You said you work at Marshes?”

“Yeah, every day. I try to get there before work, and go again afterwards. And most weekends, unless they have enough staff on. I started working for them in high school.”

Deaton nodded, “I’ll think about it.”

Stiles’s eyes and mouth opened wide, “Are you serious?”

Deaton raised his eyebrows and chuckled, “Yes, Stiles. We could do with someone full time here at your level. But let me think about it. If you give me your number I can call you when I have an answer.”

Stiles nearly dropped the pen Deaton handed him and had to cross the numbers out twice before he managed to write his number out legibly, then he was leaving Deaton’s office on shaking legs and with a pounding heart.

He’d done it. He’d actually _asked for_ the job of his dreams. He felt light-headed. What if Deaton said no? What if Deaton said _yes_?

Stiles couldn’t decide which of those responses would make him more likely to throw up. 

His mouth was completely dry when he banged into what felt like a wall of muscle rounding a corner back towards the spectator’s tent. A wall of hard, unforgiving muscle that shoved him away almost the second he made contact.

“Look where you’re going.”

The shover was only a few inches taller than him and dressed in polo gear, his helmet swinging threateningly from a fist. His light brown hair was artfully spiked - it no doubt took some time to get right in the morning - and his chiselled jaw was set in a way that dared anyone to pick fault. He could have only been about Stiles age.

“Sorry, sorry, I wasn’t looking where I was…”

Wait, why was Stiles the only one apologising?

“Yeah well you should be,” the young man snapped. Stiles looked him up and down and noted that he was wearing the jersey of the losing team.

“Sorry,” Stiles mumbled again. The man was assessing him now, with narrowed eyes.

“Are you a guest?” he asked, as though it pained him to care. Stiles stared back at him, wide-eyed. He nodded.

“Really? Why are you wondering around the stables then?”

“Jackson.”

Someone was standing behind Stiles, close enough that Stiles could feel the heat off him. Stiles froze where he stood and didn’t dare look over his shoulder. The guy he had originally run in to now looked like he had swallowed a bee. He glared at the owner of the voice with the sort of venom usually reserved for dogs who did their business on the carpet.

“Derek.”

“Accosting our guests, Jackson?”

“Screw you Hale,” Jackson practically hissed.

Derek. Derek Hale. Derek was standing behind Stiles. He swallowed heavily and took a moment to check that his limbs were contained and not about to accidentally slap anyone in the face. Hands together, take a deep breath, try to think. This was not the time to make a fool of himself.

Maybe if he played his cards right it would _help_ his job opportunities.

And maybe he wouldn’t get punched in the face by this Jackson guy.

“Didn’t take you for a sore loser Jackson.”

Jackson’s face really screwed up then. He huffed through his nose and set his symmetrically handsome face in a grimace, then turned on his heel sharply and left.

Stiles let out a sigh of relief despite himself.

“Whoa. Thanks for that, I thought he was going to headbutt me. Don’t know what I did, exactly, but-”

Stiles turned to meet his saviour’s eyes and…Derek was gone. Stiles was talking to thin air.

“O…kay.”

Stiles peered back around the corner. No sign of Derek Hale anywhere.

Well, that could be good. If he had talked to him he may have talked himself _out_ of a job rather than in to one.

Yeah, that sounded like the sort of thing that Stiles would do.

Once he was sure Jackson had disappeared ahead of him Stiles set off back towards the tent. He found Scott just as his friend was about to explode with frustration.

“Stiles! There you are! Where the hell were you, we should be gone by now.”

“Sorry, sorry, there was a _crazy_ queue for the men’s.”

Scott either didn’t hear him or was too distracted to believe his terrible lie.

“Come on, we’d better go. I need to get home and send some of these to my editor, prove that I actually came.”

“Ok but you drive, I’ve had a few glasses of champagne.”

Also his hands were shaking from the adrenaline come down. Scott chatted all the way to the car but Stiles tuned him out. Instead he was replaying the sound of Derek’s voice in his ear over and over again. He could almost still feel the heat of him, if he thought about it hard enough. Why hadn’t he turned around? He’d spent all day watching Derek Hale from afar, why hadn’t he had the nerve to turn around and simply _look_ at him when the guy was standing right behind him?

“Stiles are you alright? You’ve gone all red.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel cursed with this fic, never had so much go wrong with posting fics/chapters! Apologies if anyone got confused that there were two chapters posted. There weren't. Just one, duplicated.


	3. Straw hideaways

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Derek is trying his best to hide from his family, whilst Stiles is marching straight towards it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ooh, the lovely comments, bookmarks and kudos are the best thing ever. Thank you very much everyone! I am happier with this chapter than the previous one. I think I am over the hump.

“He’s not going to hurt you, ok? I know he’s a grump, but we’ve just got to live with these things haven’t we? Come on, it’s ok.”

“Look kid, if the damn thing isn’t going to let me give it a check up then I’ll leave it to last.”

“It’s fine, it’s fine, I got it.”

Stiles ran a hand over the nervous horse’s muzzle and shushed it softly, “Hey boy, come on, for me. For me, hey? It won’t be that bad. Just do what I do when I get a shot: close your eyes, count to ten, and I’ll give you a nice carrot for being a brave horsey.”

Stiles heard the vet behind him scoff but ignored it. He didn’t like this vet Lahey, never had. And he knew that this particular horse Bryer was never going to move if he felt in the least bit intimidated. The vet cost a small fortune for every hour he graced Marshes stables with his tight-fisted, angry presence, and Stiles didn’t want to see the look on his bosses face when he saw the vet’s fees.

Bryer seemed to consider Stiles’s kind words for a moment, then allowed himself to be lead out of the stable and into the yard. Lahey grunted and started to roll up his sleeves.

“Never mind him,” Stiles whispered to Bryer as he tied him up in the yard, “The grouch will be gone soon.”

Lahey appeared around the other side of the horse and for one terrifying moment Stiles thought he was going to stick him with the needle he held in his hand.

Instead, Lahey’s bushy brows knitted together and he just glared at him.

“God save me. Another one who talks to horses.”

Stiles frowned as he watched Lahey step down the side of the horse until he was standing at the base of Bryer’s neck, injection in hand.

“You’ve never talked to a horse before?”

Stiles gripped Bryer’s halter as the horse tensed nervously at the feel of Lahey’s hand on him.

“Course not.”

Lahey jabbed in the needle and Stiles couldn’t help himself: he snapped his head away to look out over the farmyard with a groan. When he turned back Lahey was capping the needle.

“Really?”

“No. I hate horses.”

Stiles opened his mouth, closed it, then tried again, “But you’re an equine vet.”

Lahey simply glowered.

“O-kay,” Stiles mumbled. He didn’t think it was possible to find Lahey any creepier and yet there it was.

“Stiles!”

Stiles ducked his head and peered around the side of Bryer. His boss was standing by the small office he dominated at the end of the stable block, hair standing on end and pen in hand. He curled his finger at Stiles.

“Oh god,” Stiles groaned. He gave Bryer a pat and left him reluctantly with Lahey to finish his check up.

“Yes Coach?” Stiles said as he jogged into the office. Bobby Finstock had, back in the day, been Stiles’s lacrosse coach at high school and the name ‘Coach’ had always stuck. It was the sort of random collection of jobs that a man like Finstock would have: lacrosse coach, owner of a stables, part-time economics teacher.

Finstock was a random sort of man.

“Shut the door Stilinski.”

Oh god, he was using Stiles’s last name. He only did that when he wanted to berate Stiles for something. For not ordering the right amounts of food, for leaving a bit of kit out in the rain, for making his coffee wrong, for stealing his pen, for being late, for being early, for breathing…

“So, Stilinski. Imagine my surprise when I got a call from an old friend of mine.”

Stiles looked around for a chair to sit in but there wasn’t one. Coach was splayed in his own desk chair with his pen in hand, tapping it violently against his opposite hand that was clenched into a fist.

He had his eyebrows raised up to his hairline. Stiles blinked.

“Oh. Ok.”

“And I heard something very _interesting_ from him.”

“Right.”

“Know who my friend was, Stilinski?”

Stiles thought for a moment, eyes towards the ceiling, “Santa Claus?”

Stiles flinched when the pen snapped in Coach’s hand.

“No, Stilinski. It wasn’t _Santa_ _Claus_. It was Alan Deaton from the Hale stables. Telling me that you marched up to him at a polo match and asked him for a job.”

There was a pause. Maybe he could lie his way out of this one.

“Stilinski, you can pick your jaw up off the floor.”

He never did have a very good poker face.

“Er, look, Coach, I just…”

“So he was telling the truth, then? He wasn’t pulling my leg? You _actually_ walked up to _Alan Deaton_ , the head of stables at the stuffiest family this side of the Queen of England, and just _asked_ him to be their new stable boy?”

Stiles felt the redness of embarrassment crawl from his neck to his cheekbones and all the way up to the roots of his hair.

“Er…”

“‘Cos that kind of ballsiness…well, that takes balls, Stilinski. And I didn’t think you had balls. Not real ones, anyway. I’ve seen girls with bigger balls than you. In fact, there are fillies here in these stables with bigger balls than you.”

Well this all sounded very familiar. He was sure Coach had given him this little speech at a lacrosse game in his final year of high school.

“Look, Coach, if Deaton thought it was rude, or something, I can apologise to him. Scott was there for work and he asked me as a plus one and you know how long I’ve wanted to work full-time in a stables, and you can’t pay me to do this job full-time, so I just wanted to take my chance whilst I had it.”

“Oh he didn’t think it was rude,” Coach said, leaning forward in his chair now with that slightly manic look in his eyes, “ _I_ thought it was downright rude, don’t get me wrong. If I was Deaton I’d have thrown you out on your ass, even if it was at a fancy polo match. Deaton, however, isn’t used to dealing with you pissy little ingrate kids, as I am.”

How _did_ this guy ever get into teaching?

“Soooo,” Stiles said, desperate for this conversation to end, “He didn’t think it was rude?”

“No. In fact he thought it was a pretty good way to go about getting noticed. So he rang me and asked me if I thought you were up for the job.”

“Oh?” Stiles squeaked.

Coach was pausing for dramatic affect. He used to do this to the team when announcing first line for the lacrosse team, just to tease out the torment of the group of boys waiting for some sort of affirmation they were good at something. 

“I’m pretty sure I didn’t say that you were. In fact, I think I may have actively advised him against it. But…he’s taking you on anyway.”

There was a very loud white noise in Stiles’s ear.

“I…I got the job?”

 

* * *

 

 

There were four places on the Hale estate that Derek could have a good chance of hiding from his family for a few hours. Each had their pros and cons and, if he was genuinely trying to avoid being found, he had to weigh up which one would work for that day and that particular situation.

The first was his Dad’s study. He had stolen the key a few months after his Dad’s death and was pretty sure he was the only one who had one. It was the best place to hide from Laura and Cora because even if they knew he was in there they didn’t dare step over the threshold of that room. The down side was that Peter had no qualms about stepping into his dead brother-in-laws study to dig out his nephew if he wanted him. So when Peter was on the warpath it was a bad place to hide from his uncle. Plus the whole room reminded Derek of his Dad: from the throws on the sofa that smelt like him to the books on the shelf that he had seen his Dad read over the years. Derek had to feel pretty emotionally stable to sink himself into memories of his Dad for the sake of a hideout.

The second place was a small summer house at the very edge of the Hale estate, in one of the high corners snarled with trees and wild undergrowth, which had been gutted by a fire when Derek was a child. Pros: it took long enough to trek across the estate to get there that only the most determined person would bother to slog out there to get him, especially if the weather was bad. Cons: it was damp and cold and a family of rats had decided to take residence under the floorboards.

The third place was the Argents’ cabin. Chris Argent had managed the land of the Hale estate since his father had retired, and his Dad Gerard had taken on the job from his own father. The family had been working for the Hales for generations, and their responsibility was the acres of land that made up the estate. Derek had never liked Gerard, but Chris had become not quite a friend - Derek didn’t really consider anyone a ‘friend’, apart from maybe his sisters - but he was certainly an ally.

If Derek really wanted to hide out Chris was always there to shelter him, often with a glass of whiskey (Chris had been the one to teach Derek how to hold his liquor, although perhaps a few years earlier than was legally allowed). The benefits were that the cabin was warm, homey, and smelt like woodsmoke and the outdoors. He could go through Chris’s gun collection or help him sort out the traps, or look in on whatever wild animal from the estate that Chris’s daughter Allison was nursing through ill-health, accident or abandonment. Chris would say gruffly that he’d rather just put the animal in question down, but Derek knew that he was the first to help his daughter find warm blankets and give advice on how to keep the poor unfortunate alive. It was also the only one of Derek’s hideouts that Peter never dared come to. Chris and Peter had never got on. There’d have to be a true family emergency for Peter to dare step foot into the small garden around the cottage that came with Argent’s job.

Then again, Laura and Cora were good friends with Allison, so this particular hideout was not sister-proof.

The fourth place was the stables. It was probably Derek’s favourite place in the world and amongst the horses and buildings, the rush of staff and the whinny of horses, it was easy to disappear completely. So even if Peter was striding with a glare like thunder trying to find him, or if Cora was doing her best to track him like a hunter, it was difficult for him to be found easily.

 

On a day like today Derek had chosen the stables as his preferred place to lay low. It was two days after the charity polo match and he was still feeling the headache from the handshaking, the small talk, the introductions and speeches. It was like a socialising-induced hangover. The day before his uncle had roped him into every piece of Hale family business he could think of. Then he had appeared that morning at breakfast and told his nephew and nieces that their mother wanted to see them today. When they had time, they should go and see her.

Laura had tried to catch Derek’s eye, but he was gone before he could be drawn into a conversation.

Now he just had to hide out until he a) got the courage to see his mother or b) the day ran away with him and he found a valid excuse for not having gone.

He was hoping for option b.

Derek was sitting in his horse Lunar’s stall, hidden from sight in the near corner underneath the hay rack. It smelt like straw and horse down here, unsurprisingly, and it was the sort of smell that calmed Derek down. He’d been there for a few hours, and if anyone knew that the Hale’s only son was sat in one of the stables then they hadn’t mentioned it. He could hear the staff talk as they moved around doing their tasks of the day: some stable gossip, some from the polo match - including an idle rumour about Jackson Whittemore and his girlfriend Lydia - and then the mention of a new stablehand. Derek didn’t really pay attention to any of it, but it was a nice background hum to the silence of the stall. It kept his mind from wandering into areas he didn’t want it to. Like the subject of work. Like his mother. Like the weight of his uncle’s shadow over the back of his neck. Like Laura’s secret. The last one was inextricably tied to the first, and the two middle ones were combined to just one big headache. Moments away from it all were few and far between.

Derek lifted his head when he heard Deaton’s voice pass by the stable door. Lunar’s ears perked up too. The horses were Deaton’s biggest fans.

“And here we are, back at the main stable block.”

“It’s huge.”

“We like to think that it’s the perfect size for what we are trying to achieve. The hydrotherapy treatment area will be open soon, and we have a few new developments underway. That said, we don’t throw our money away easily. Keep an eye on wastage and expenditure.”

“Sure, can do.”

Lunar seemed determined to get Deaton’s attention. She was stretching her head forward over the stall door, bright eyed and keen for some attention. Derek clicked his tongue as quietly as possible, trying to drag his horse’s attention back to him, but she was determined. Derek was weighing up how ridiculous it would be to try and hide in her hay rack before he was discovered when the stable door opened and Deaton and his companion entered.

“Derek,” Deaton said, with a level smile as he swung the door shut behind them. Deaton never sounded surprised about anything, ever. Lunar rubbed her huge head against his side in delight.

The man standing next to him did however look very surprised. Derek levered himself to his feet and just prayed that there wasn’t straw in his hair.

Deaton, thank god, didn’t mention the fact Derek had clearly been lurking in a stable all day. Again. Of course Deaton would never be able to make a big deal of it, because Derek’s family owned every horse in this stable and paid Deaton’s handsome wages. If Derek wanted to be weird and sit in a stable with a horse for hours on end hiding from said family then that was his prerogative. That didn’t stop Deaton from staring at him with that paternal look in his eye whenever he found Derek hanging around.

“Derek, this is Stiles. Our new stablehand.”

Derek looked him up and down. Oh. It was him. The guy he had saved from a dressing down from Jackson. He wasn’t in a suit anymore. Today he was wearing a plaid shirt over a Batman t-shirt and was looking at Derek like he was a swamp monster.

Derek tried to arrange his expression into something like a polite greeting, but going by the look on Stiles’s face his eyebrows were doing that thing where they knitted together in a glower, his face a closed off glare.

“Hi,” Stiles said, as though his throat was very dry.

“Oh Derek, there you are!”

Damn it, Laura had spotted him. She leant past Deaton and the new boy with a mischievous grin and grabbed him by the collar, “Come on, I need to talk to you about something.”

Derek had a moment to feel indignant about being dragged away like a recalcitrant child, then his eyes found Stiles again. The new guy was giving him an amused but not mocking grin, and raised a hand to give a little wave.

 

Laura didn’t let go of him until one of the many entrances to the Hale house was shut behind them. They were in the dark back passage where once servants used to scurry up and down the stairs unheard, but these days was mostly used for staff to have a cigarette when the weather got too cold outside.

“I should have known you were hiding in the stables.”

“I wasn’t _hiding_.”

“You are always hiding Derek. Even when you are standing in a group of people you are trying to hide. That’s the sort of person you are.”

“I really don’t need your psych analysis, thanks Laura.”

Her lips twisted into a smile, “Look, I know what you were doing. Sitting alone trying to decide whether or not you should go and see Mom.”

She sighed and placed a hand on his arm, still smiling even though it had become sadder at the corners.

“So I’m going to make the decision for you. We’ll go and see her now, together. Cora is waiting upstairs. Peter was called in by the office so it’s just the three of us.”

Derek just nodded tightly.

“Good. Ok, let’s go.”

Her warm and slipped against his was comforting rather than demanding now, “It’ll be ok.”

He shrugged, “Fine.”

A frown flickered across her face, “Oh Derek, look at you. You’ve got straw in your hair.”

 

* * *

 

“And that was Derek Hale.”

“Right,” Stiles said, with a slow blink to clear away the small spots of colour that had started to creep into the edge of his vision. He blamed it on the sight of Derek the-big-bad-wolf Hale with straw in his hair.

Seeing him emerge out of the straw in a horse’s stall with that ‘don’t you dare talk to me’ glower, plus this being the first day of a new job, was putting Stiles on the brink of one long panic attack.

Thankfully Deaton didn’t seem to notice his internal breakdown, or if he did he was too polite to mention it.

“So, that’s pretty much everything. Let me show you where you’re going to be sleeping.”

The room at the back of the stables was about fifteen by twelve foot, and smelt like hay. In fact Stiles wouldn’t have been surprised if the mattress and duvet were stuffed with it. The small bed was pushed along the far wall and a small chest of drawers sat alongside it. There was a sink in the opposite corner and…that was it.

Stiles had been warned that the accommodation would be small, but the idea of getting up before dawn every morning to get to the stables had been enough to say yes. Plus, his Jeep was most definitely on its way to the big junk yard in the sky, and if he put that sort of daily pressure on her she’d be gone from this world much sooner. And even on a Hale family salary he probably wouldn’t be able to afford the gas. So living on site seemed the most viable option, and he wasn’t about to complain. He had wanted this job to be his full-time career and he’d got what he’d wished for. In the space of about 48 hours he’d gone from daydreaming to living the dream. 

“There’s a toilet and shower next door which are just for you, the others in the next block beyond are for the rest of the staff throughout the day. Did Mr Harris explain to you about your meals?”

Stiles nodded. He’d had a letter from a Mr Harris, who was apparently Head of Staff at the Hale house, explaining in minute detail the position Stiles now held. Which, from what he could tell, was considered to be down there with the stable’s dormice. Stiles was to go into backof the Hale house through the service door and eat with the rest of the staff for breakfast, lunch and dinner. The rest of the time he was stay as far away from the Hale house as humanly possible. In fact being seen beyond the confines of the stable grounds when he wasn’t eating his Lucky Charms would be a punishable offence.

There were about fifty other things that were a punishable offence but Stiles hadn’t had a chance to read through them all.

“There are a few blankets in the bottom drawer. When it gets colder you’ll need them.”

“Right. Thanks.”

Deaton looked amused, “I hope this is ok, Stiles.”

“Oh, no, hey, it’s great. It’s…homey.”

Deaton looked about the room, “Homey is one word for it.”

He clapped his new charge on the back, “You can take the rest of the day to look around and get to know the place. You start 5am sharp.”

“Gotcha.”

Stiles waited until Deaton left then forced his hands down from where they were giving two stupid thumbs up. What the hell was wrong with him? Who gives a double thumbs up to their boss?

Stiles groaned and flopped down onto the bed, only to almost immediately fly back off it again. The mattress was most definitely _not_ packed with straw. He guessed it was cement, ball bearings and a few nails.

He knew that Deaton said they didn’t waste their money here, but still…the Hales had more money than the Bank of England. Where was the love for their new stableboy?

Stiles sighed and lowered himself more gingerly onto the bed. He had no right to complain, so he was going to stop that train of thought right now. He didn’t have to work at the library anymore (wait…shouldn’t he ring his old boss about that soon?) and he didn’t have to spread himself so thinly between doing a job he loved for no pay and doing a job he hated for some pay. This was it. A job. A proper job that he liked, that he was paid for, that he could do well.

He couldn’t help the stupid grin on his face.

Ok, so there were sacrifices. He was going to have to sleep on a bed with similar properties to a coffin for the foreseeable future, and he was going to have to be the entire stables’ bitch until he could prove himself.

Oh, and he had to move out of his home. His Dad had been understanding, and proud of him of course, but Stiles hadn’t missed the extra tight squeeze when they had said goodbye at the side of Stiles’s jeep that afternoon. His Dad had given him that soft squinty look that he got when he was worried about Stiles, and it had made Stiles feel all twisted with guilt.

He was old enough to leave home, it had always been something he’d aimed to do as quickly as possible. He needed his independence, his chance to become an adult on his own terms. That didn’t mean that he wouldn’t miss takeaways with his Dad and sitting in the front of his squad car denying him curly fries. He’d promised to call his Dad at the end of his first day and to come back whenever was possible.

That was where there was a small problem. His Dad was going to be fighting for his attention from Scott who, in typical McCall style, had looked like a kicked puppy when Stiles told him that his new job was residential.

“Dude, what? Like…you won’t live at home anymore?!”

There had been a lot more ‘dudes’, a lot more doe-eyed whining, a hell of a lot of bro-hugs. But eventually Scott came round to the idea that Stiles was off to do something he loved, and not living ten minutes drive from one another was just one of the sacrifices of growing up. At least he was still in Beacon Hills. Hell, the Hale family owned most of the town. When he got time off he could visit Scott and he was sure that, once he got his bearings and understood Mr Harris’s Never Ending List of Anally Retentive Rules, that he could find a few to bend and get Scott in to visit him.

Thinking of Scott reminded him about something strange Scott had said as they were saying their goodbyes. They had got onto the topic of the members of the Hale family: no, Cora was a bit too young to consider hot just yet; yeah potentially working around Derek was going to be weird if he does nothing but glare; not sure what Talia Hale is like, she hasn’t been seen in a while. Then Scott added:

“So I heard they have a guy who works there whose, like, their estate manager, looks after the woods and stuff.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. Chris Argent. He has a daughter. Allison.”

“Right.”

Then Scott had got that goofy look on his face like he’d just smelt cookies being baked, and gave Stiles another hug.

How did Scott know what some guy who worked here’s daughter was called?

“Hey newbie.”

Stiles sat up on the bed with a start. A guy about his age was standing in the doorway, all angles and watchful eyes but with a friendly smile.

“Uh, hi.”

“I’m Isaac.”

“Stiles.”

“So you’re our new live in stablehand hey?”

“Yeah.”

“Come on, Deaton says I can show you around whilst I’m not busy.”

 


	4. Stable Creeping

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Derek is a creeper, Stiles is introduced to the Hale estate.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for the kudos and omg those lovely comments everyone!! I am going to go through and reply to them all in the morning, but for now here is the next chapter. I am on the verge of falling asleep on my laptop so I may have missed a few errors in my final read through. Once I am more fresh tomorrow I will give it a look through and catch any mistakes I missed. 
> 
> Also, if you don't know what a Tamaskan is, look them up! Gorgeous. 
> 
> There is a link in the text to one piece of clothing Derek wears in this chapter. It was mostly as an excuse to spend some time trawling through Mr Porter! I'm selfless when it comes to my art, truly.

“So Deaton’s showed you the stables yeah?”

“Yeah. It’s great. It’s _huge_. Much bigger than the place I used to work.”

“Where was that?”

“The Marshes Stbales. Down in Beacon Hills?”

Isaac rubbed a hand across the back of his neck and if Stiles wasn’t mistaken he flushed a bit red, “Oh, yeah. I know it.”

Then he added quickly, “I’m from Beacon Hills so, yeah, I know it.”

“It isn’t even _a tenth_ the size of this place. It’s amazing.”

“Well how about I show you some of the other bits as well, you might start to get to know your way around. It’s big enough to get lost easily.”

They started at the area immediately around the stables. It was connected to the gardens of the Hale house by a sweep of pebble driveway lined with artful potted topiary. Along one side on a square of freshly laid tarmac were horse boxes parked in neat rows, moving from the small at one end to the large at the other. Ridiculously large. Stiles swore that the biggest one was larger than his Dad’s house.

They stood at the edge of the Hale gardens and Isaac raised a hand towards the house that sat neatly in its centre. It was huge, a pale red brick, with white frontage and smattered with ivy to look both regal and romantic.

“So that’s the Hale house. Talia Hale lives there, and all three of the Hale kids, Laura, Derek and Cora. Mrs Hale used to ride often but not anymore. Laura isn’t really that into horses but Cora rides often. She’s nice. Derek is the one that’s horse mad. He’ll be at the stables most days.”

“Yeah, he was there today.”

“Was he? I didn’t see him.”

“Oh he was, er, in a stall. In the hay.”

Isaac looked sideways at him, “Actually that’s not as unusual as you might think.”

“Really? I thought that Derek was a big block of ice that glared at people for a living.”

Isaac chuckled despite himself, “Yeah, he is. But when he’s at the stables…I don’t know, he’s a little different. He still doesn’t talk, or _not_ glare. But he seems happier around horses.”

“Duly noted,” Stiles said, and made a tick motion in the air. He looked back towards the house tinged purple by the slowly dwindling twilight. A sleek black Aston Martin Vanquish - Stiles knew that’s what it was because he was the sort of boy who knew these things - suddenly turned into view and made its way up the main driveway. It swung with efficiency into a space next to a black Camaro.

“That’s Peter Hale,” Isaac said, suddenly taking a step back and coughing nervously, “Ugh, come on, let me show you the rest of it.”

“That’s their uncle, right?” Stiles asked, not moving, and keeping an eye on Peter as he stepped out of the car and marched up the driveway. The car lights flashed as he locked it with a flick of the key fob.

“Yeah. That’s him.”

Peter Hale covered the driveway in a handful of purposeful strides and jogged up the front stairs. He seemed to barge his way into the front door, then all was silent.

“Come on,” Isaac chivvied.

Next Isaac showed him to the back of the gardens and an old but well kept set of wide stone steps that opened out onto the rest of the Hale estate.

“The grounds go on for miles, so I wouldn’t bother trying to see it all.”

The neatly trimmed grass fell down a soft dip to the edge of a bank of trees, fronted by a low-slung house made of clapboard. The lights were already on in the window and two dogs were scrapping in its front yard.

“That’s where the Argents live. Chris Argent manages all of the estate. Helps out with the hunting, shooting, keeps the woods, all that stuff. He has a daughter, Allison.” Isaac paused, eyes fixed on the house, “She’s kinda hot.”

“Oh. Ok.”

“Just remember that her Dad keeps shotguns,” Isaac added, with a deadly serious face. Stiles got the impression that this poor boy had at one time remembered that fact far too late.

“I’ll make a note of that too.”

“Anyway, beyond the woods are just more and more bits of Hale land. You’ll get to know the trails we take the horses on eventually. There are some great ones, and if you want to let them go a bit there’s great places for jumps. I’m guessing as a stableboy you’re a good rider?”

Stiles shrugged his shoulders, “Well I don’t like to brag, but…”

Isaac blinked back at him like he wasn’t sure if he was joking or not.

“Er yeah, I can ride. Been doing it since I was a kid.”

“Good.”

Stiles followed Isaac across the lower end of the gardens and back towards the stables. It was as they were about to descend to the sprawling mass of the stableyard that a mud-spattered Land Rover drew up beside them.

It was driven by a man with close-cropped hair, bordering on the salt-and-pepper era of a man’s life, and a weathered face that told of a lot of time spent outsides. He was handsome in a Dad-ish sort of way, if you were into that sort of thing.

“Isaac,” the man said with a nod, leaning out of the open Land Rover window.

“Oh, hey Chris,” Isaac said, with a thick swallow. It was the sound of a guy who had most certainly hit on this man’s daughter, “I was just showing our new stablehand around. Stiles this is Chris Argent. Chris, Stiles.’

“Nice to meet you Stiles,” Chris said, in a voice like whisky and gravel.

“You too,” Stiles said, feeling intimidated despite himself. He was pretty sure that he could spy a rack of hunting rifles in the back of the car.

“Isaac, tell Deaton we’re playing cards tonight. If he wants to come along with a few of you guys, you’re more than welcome.”

“Yeah, I’ll tell him.”

Chris looked them up and down, considering them for a quiet moment, then turned back to his steering wheel, “See you around boys.”

Chris angled the Land Rover away from them, down to his cottage near the woods.

“So, he’s kind of scary,” Stiles said to break the sudden silence.

“I think he’s a nice guy under all those guns.”

“Whatever, now I know for sure that I won’t be hitting on his daughter.”

Isaac nodded furiously.

 

* * *

 

Back at the stables the two of them found their way to the staff room where a few of the other workers were sat on overturned buckets and feed bins talking, texting, filling in paperwork. Isaac presented the invitation from Chris to the small collected group, and a few took up the offer.

“Mr Stilinski.”

Stiles whirled on the spot with his heart hammering at the shock of having his name intoned so threateningly in his ear.

“Jesus,” he hissed despite himself.

“No,” the man standing right behind him said, “I’m Mr Harris.”

He had a long, narrow face underneath black rimmed glasses and a waxy lizard’s smile.

“Oh. Hi.”

“Hello.”

Mr Harris inclined his head to the door, “Five minutes of your time if you please, Mr Stilinski.”

Stiles coughed as he nodded obediently and followed Mr Harris out as meekly as he could manage. So this was the man that had sent him that uptight letter about the rules of the Hale residence.

Mr Harris showed him into Deaton’s office, in which the Head of Stables was conspicuously absent. There was no sign of the whiskey that he had been necking after the polo game.

“Mr Stilinski. I wonder if I might run over a few of the more important points of the letter I sent to you yesterday.”

“Uh, yeah, sure, go ahead.”

Mr Harris was evaluating him with a cold, hard stare, taking in every inch of Stiles and no doubt finding something abhorrent about it.

“Whilst you are on your own time you are able to wear what you want, but this isn’t your previous job. I expect you to look neat and smart even whilst you are mucking out the horses. Is that clear?”

“Ok,” Stiles acquiesced. Was Mr Harris having a dig at his Batman t-shirt?

“That goes for having your meals in the house. You must take off your boots at the door and make sure that you are clean and presentable whilst having your food. Breakfast is between seven and eight, lunch between midday and one, and dinner between seven and eight. Understood?”

Stiles nodded. He was getting the distinct impression that Mr Harris was the sort of man for whom you simply shut your mouth and nodded.

“If you miss the meal times then I am afraid that is your burden to bear. At no other time must you be on the immediate Hale grounds, that includes the main driveway or the gardens.”

“What if I’m asked to?” Stiles asked before he could stop himself. Mr Harris’s eyes steeled.

“If a member of the Hale family wishes you to come into the house or the gardens then you must of course do what they say.”

“Oh. Good.”

“But they are your employers, Mr Stilinski. All of them. Even Cora Hale.”

Was Mr Harris trying to scare him off the youngest Hale? That was insulting, Cora was fifteen years old and Stiles wasn’t a cradle-snatcher.

“Do I need to, like, bow or curtsey or anything? Doff my cap? Sweep the dust off their coat tails?”

Oh good god stop talking.

Mr Harris’s gaze was like the snake that spotted a limping mouse, “Of course not.”

“Oh. Good. Sorry, just wanted to check that I hadn’t come to work at Downton Abbey.”

Mr Harris sighed through his nose.

“Get to bed Mr Stilinski. I hear you have an early start time tomorrow. Sleep well.”

Those last two words were said with a sort of sick glee. Mr Harris must have seen the bed Stiles had to sleep in.

“You too Mr Harris.”

Mr Harris gave him one final glare then stalked out of the office, his shiny dress shoes squeaking.

It wasn’t long before Stiles relented to the exhaustion and took himself to bed. He was technically off duty for the whole evening so he didn’t feel too guilty when the rest of the staff went out for their final tasks of the night. The darkness had fallen completely by the time he heard some cars in the staff car park burst into life. No-one else apart from him and Deaton stayed on the stable premises at night.

Stiles doubted that Deaton had as uncomfortable a mattress as he did.

Stiles had washed his face and brushed his teeth in the freezing water in the basin, but forgone the shower when he couldn’t face the idea of getting naked in that ice cold cubicle. He’d save that particular treat to wake him up at 4:30am, the time his phone alarm was set to go off.

He crawled delicately onto the bed and couldn’t help his groan. It was. So. Uncomfortable.

The thin duvet didn’t do anything to keep off the fine chill that had settled over the room so he dug out two of the thick blankets from the drawer and threw them over himself. He peered out from under his cocoon around his grey cell. He hadn’t bothered to unpack yet; all he could see was the corner of the room where his backpack was slumped against the wall. He’d packed all of the essentials and would go back home to get things when needed.

Home.

A tight ball forced its way into his throat. He was definitely not homesick. Definitely, definitely not homesick. He closed his eyes and tried to think sleepy thoughts. It helped that he had his pillow. The first thing his Dad had said when he announced the job was going to be a live-in position was: “Make sure you pack your pillow.”

It helped, a lot. It smelt like home, it felt like home, he would definitely be able to sleep. He just had to stop _thinking_ about home and then it’d be easy.

He was about to try counting sheep when his phone trilled with a message.

 

**SCOTT**

**Hope your first day goes well. How’s the room?**

 

_Tiny. Not so bad though._

**SCOTT**

**Got your pillow?**

 

_Yeah got my pillow_

**SCOTT**

**Good luck for tomorrow man**

_Thanks. Night._

It wasn’t his usual acerbic self but at the moment he couldn’t think of much else to say that didn’t make his eyes burn hotly. Then his phone beeped again.

 

**DAD**

**Night son**

Stiles sighed. Yeah, he was homesick. But at least he had his pillow.

 

* * *

 

 

Derek stared up at his ceiling and wondered what had possessed him to get rid of the canopy of glow-in-the-dark stars that had once completely covered the space above his bed. His whole ceiling, in fact, had been covered by constellations, a sprawling mass of gentle light that he’d stared up at from the age of five. It had been a present for his birthday, but one that he hadn’t known about until bedtime. Unbeknownst to the newly-turned five year old Derek he had been kept busy and out of his room all day with presents, a tea party and time with the family whilst a team of decorators moved into his bedroom and installed the lights, dots and stickers that made up the starry canopy. When he had gone to bed that night with his Dad stretched beside him ready to read a story, his Mum sat in the corner on a beanbag (reading through some spreadsheets, but there nonetheless), they had turned off the lights and Derek had stared up speechless at his newly changed ceiling.

He remembered feeling completely weightless, as though he was being sucked into space itself. He remembered clinging onto his Dad’s arm and squealing with delight, jumping up and down on the mattress in an attempt to reach the stars.

The stars had remained there even when he became a teenager. He didn’t care that anyone would think it was childish. It wasn’t like Laura’s room, that had at one point been decorated like a ladybird had spewed all over it. She’d asked for that to be changed the minute she hit puberty: red and black polka dots and creepy little bugs were _not_ her thing anymore. Likewise Cora had sheepishly asked if, for her twelfth birthday, one of her presents could be a redecoration of her My Little Pony themed bedroom.

But Derek had never changed his stars. He’d found them comforting and quite cool, even though he never really cared about that sort of thing. Plus he’d never really had friends over to see them. When he grew out of the age of enforced playdates with children from his school he tended to have no-one in his room other than his parents and sisters. Some of the stars had faded by the time he reached his teens but they were a comforting glow nonetheless.

Then his Dad died. And in a fit of  grief-induced rage he’d asked for them to be painted over. His Mom had asked him one, twice, three times: are you sure, Derek? Are you sure you want the stars gone?

Yes, he’d snarled, the only way that he spoke to anyone those days. I’m not a child anymore, I don’t want them.

So after a few weeks of leaving him to see if he’d forget the idea, his Mom relented and had them painted over.

The ceiling was white now. There were a few lumps and bumps where stickers or parts of the special paper used had been left behind. He could trace them in the cold white light of a half moon that streamed in through his window.

Why had he got rid of those stars? Ok he was twenty years old now, but he wouldn’t have minded that familiar glow on the ceiling above him.

Looking back he supposed it wasn’t so hard to understand why he had done it. It was the grief. The feeling that he couldn’t be a child now, not when his Dad had been wrenched from him so suddenly. And anything childish had to be eradicated. Stars on the ceiling were childish, that gentle glow in the dark didn’t need to be there, not when you were an adult. Not when you were a man who stood on his own, who didn’t need night-lights, who didn’t need the comfort of a familiar constellation painted across his ceiling.

A lot of other things had bitten the dust around that time too. He’d thrown out all of his comic books - he’d had quite a collection up until then - all of his old films, the adolescent books he’d loved, any stuffed toys hidden in the wardrobe that had survived previous gentler culls, all of his basketball jerseys from his favourite team, the stupid video games, the posters on the wall. It had all been binned in the space of one weekend after his Dad’s funeral.

Derek had been quite a quiet, thoughtful kid anyway before his Dad’s death. But that day he’d sunk into a darkness and a brooding that he’d never really come out of. He saw it himself, clear as day. It wasn’t as though he didn’t recognise that his face was a permanent glower most of the time. He just didn’t feel like he had much else to do with it. It had just become the person he was now. And was it hard sometimes to see himself as that dark person with the cold shoulder? Maybe. But he knew deep down he deserved it. It was his punishment.

Still, he wished he hadn’t got rid of the star canopy.

Derek groaned and rolled onto his side. It must have been two in the morning and he had gone to bed at eleven. Three hours of tossing and turning had left him itchy all over and his head stuffed full of things he didn’t want to think about.

The two dogs on the bed next to him sniffled and twitched, but only the older dog raised his head to see the disturbance. It was as though he could feel its master’s distress. Derek raised a hand and rested it heavily on his dog’s head. Artemis made a low whine in his throat, a tentative question. Derek scrubbed with his fingers and the whine turned to a rumble of delight. Artemis lowered his head and closed his eyes, happy that he the situation seemed sorted. 

Derek hadn’t shut the curtains because he liked the light of the moon too much. And now from his window he could see the bristling outline of the trees and a small portion of the clipped hedges at the edge of the Italian garden. Beyond that were the stables.

The stables…

He finally relented to an idea he had first had an hour ago and rolled himself out of the covers. He was wearing only black pyjama pants, his usual uniform for bed. There was always the small risk that his Uncle might barge into his room when he was dressed for bed - perhaps for urgent family business or to have an uncle/nephew talk, or in the hope of enticing him down to the kitchen to get drunk on whisky and play chess (it happened more often than it probably should) - and then see the tattoo that Derek had been hiding for months. But he’d managed to avoid it so far, and he burnt like a furnace when he slept at night. There was no way that he was going to wear a shirt to sleep just in case Peter pushed his way in.

Artemis woke again, stirring Castor too. The Tamaskan puppy was only nine months old and easily excited. He leapt onto his spindly legs and gurgled happily. Artemis simply watched him from his Sphinx position on the bed, head lowered in annoyance as Castor jumped back and forth over him, giving little quiet yips.

“Shush, shush, Castor, it’s alright.”

Artemis headbutted the puppy and sent him sprawling across the covers. Whilst the older dog kept the younger one quiet Derek stripped off his pyjama pants and dressed in a hurry. As an afterthought he pulled on the [black Burberry hoody](http://www.mrporter.com/en-us/mens/burberry_brit/cotton-blend-hoodie-/497463) that Laura had got him for his last birthday and stood for a moment by the door deliberating whether or not to put his phone in his pocket. At the last moment he slid it in.

“Stay here,” he murmured to Artemis and Castor. Castor whined.

“Castor. Stay.”

The puppy wriggled for a moment on the spot, torn between wanting to come along for the adventure and doing as he was told. Artemis folded himself neatly onto the covers and rested his head on his paws. After a moment Castor relented and lay down too, but kept his bright eyes on Derek’s every movement. Derek gave them both a rough pat on the side and slipped from the room.

The hallway outside his room was quiet. It was only a short carpeted corridor off one of the main wings and he’d always appreciated its secluded location. Maybe his parents had thought that their two daughters needed bedrooms with more visible doors. 

Tonight it was advantageous for another reason: it gave him a chance to sneak out of the house without being seen. He slid to the end of the corridor and angled himself across the landing and down the service stairs. It had once been the servants’ stairs and decades after that a fire escape, but the whole thing had been unused for years. Apart for the Hale children, from the current generation and ones before, who used it as their darkened escape from the house.

Derek avoided the pebble driveway to the stables and stuck to the grass edges. He moved silently past the horse boxes and jumped the fence into the stable yard.

The stables never really quiet as the horses didn’t really sleep, or at least not solidly like other animals. They shifted constantly, entertaining themselves with straw or by scratching themselves against the sharp corners of their stall. The ones out in the field huddled together, ears flickering occasionally and taking it in turns to sleep, otherwise content to watch flitting shadows amongst the moonlit bushes.

Derek avoided the far end of the stables where Deaton had rooms above his office and headed for the nearest block.

He wasn’t even sure why he was here. But he hoped that some time here would help him switch off. Maybe he’d even be able to go to sleep when he got back to bed, once his mind had been completely purged of everything it couldn’t let go.

He snuck into the nearside entrance and was careful to move gently across the concrete floor. The horses all peered forward to see who the newcomer was. The only people to wonder here at night were the night time security. Speaking of which, Derek pulled out his phone and checked the time. He had another half an hour before he had to hide somewhere as the bored security guard did his rounds.

Derek spent that half an hour moving between the horses. Checking them over, talking to them (quietly, under his breath, even when there wasn’t anyone around to hear him), enjoying the huff of their breath against the palm of his hand as he stroked their muzzle.

He completely lost track of time and heard the crunch of the security guard’s boot against the yard concrete before he remembered the time. Crap. He couldn’t get caught down here at 3am again. Of course he was perfectly entitled to be down here as these were his family’s horses, but the news always ended up drifting back to the rest of the family.

Derek stepped out of the stall he was in and eased himself down the row of stables to the small collection of rooms at the end. He couldn’t hide in Deaton’s office: the guard checked there to make sure no-one had snuck in for the keys or Deaton’s work computer. He was sure there was a store room back here that no-one gave a second glance. But the clouds had unhelpfully drifted across the body of the moon and there was none of its silvery light to help him see by.

‘This is ridiculous’ he thought, ‘Why the hell am I sneaking around my own family’s stables?’

Then he remembered the look on his uncle’s face last time the word had got back to him that he’d been there in the wee small hours. The lecture he’d got about ‘focus’. ‘Eyes on the prize, Derek’.

What the hell even was this prize?

It certainly wasn’t the pinch of concern around Laura’s eyes or Cora’s teeth worrying at the edge of her lip when they heard that he had not been sleeping properly again. He was twenty years old and yet his every movement was scrutinised like he was next in line to the fucking throne. But then again that’s what this whole summer had been like. Ever since Laura…

Derek was snapped out of his reverie by the sharp scrape as the security guard turned on his heel and headed down the narrow corridor, right towards him.

Shit. Shit. Shit.

Derek took a step back and felt the hard bump of a closed door behind him. The storeroom. He scrabbled a hand around for the door handle and it mercifully slipped down under his fingers.

He eased the door shut and rested his back against it, eyes closed, listening to the sound of footsteps passing. As they turned left around the corner to Deaton’s office Derek opened his eyes.

When the hell did they put a _bed_ in this storeroom?

And not just a bed. There was someone in it. Sleeping.

Derek’s breath had caught in his chest and he knew his mouth was open enough to catch flies but he didn’t care at that moment.

There was a person in the storeroom. On a bed, with a rucksack of possessions in the far corner. They were clearly living here.

And this guy wasn’t just asleep, he was _fast_ asleep. He was splayed on his front with the blankets tangled between his legs, and one armed lolled towards the concrete floor. His head was propped up onto a pillow and he was open-mouthed snoring into the material.

All at once the moon came back out from behind the clouds and washed through the small high window.

It was Stiles. Stiles,the new stableboy, the one that had seen him emerge from the straw earlier in the day. And now Derek was standing like the model of a pervert intruder in the corner of his room.

The security guard was making his way painfully slowly through his rounds of the back rooms. No doubt using the wi-fi in Deaton’s office for his phone.

Derek couldn’t stand there anymore. His entrance hadn’t disturbed Stiles but now he was terrified to make any sort of noise at all. What if he woke up? How would he explain that? How would he explain why he was suddenly standing in the corner of this guy’s bedroom like a statue watching him as he slept?

Stiles’s mouthed something into his pillow and flexed his neck a little.

‘Don’t wake up. Don’t wake up. Don’t wake up.’

“Hmm, no, no, yeah, no. No, Dad. I didn’, I promise.”

‘Oh god don’t talk in your sleep, don’t talk in your sleep.’

Did the security guard know that there was someone staying in this room? What if he didn’t and he came to investigate?

Oh god why did he have to hide from the security guard so badly, he could have just strolled right past him and let the man spread rumours if he wanted. What did he care? Now he was trapped in a tiny room looming over someone sleeping.

“Huh? No it’s _fine_. Hey curly fries, come back. Come back curly fries.”

Derek couldn’t help but roll his eyes a little. This guys was dreaming _curly_ _fries_? What sort of person had Deaton hired to handle their horses?

Down the corridor he heard the security guard leave Deaton’s office and the scrape-scratch of his footsteps became louder down the corridor.

“No, Dad! Scott needs curly fries too.”

The security guard’s footsteps drew up to the door behind Derek’s back. And stopped.

 


	5. Eavesdropping

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stiles eavesdrops and gets himself into trouble.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know this is late, I'm soooooooo sorry! Turns out real life is quite a distraction. Thank you so much for your wonderful comments and kudos, they do make my day. 
> 
> P.s. I am pretty sleep-deprived so hope that there aren't too many mistakes! It is un-betad and although I try to self-edit things usually slip through. I will double check when I can tomorrow.

Stiles woke up with a jump. For a moment he lay frozen in the dark, the only sound the pounding of his own heart in his ears. When he finally managed to tune it out there was just silence.

But he’d heard something, he was sure of it. It had been loud enough, or close enough, to wake him from a deep sleep. He tried to rewind the moment back in his head. He’d been dreaming - something long and complicated involving a diner and a madman trying to take over the world - and then… ‘click’. That was the sound he’d heard, the click of a door. His door.

Stiles slid out of his tiny cot and picked his way across the ice rink of a concrete floor on bare feet. The door _looked_ closed. He tried the handle and stuck his head out into the corridor. Nothing. He shut the door behind him and curled back onto his shelf of a bed. After a moment he jumped back out, pushed his rucksack against the door as a flimsy protective barrier, and then slunk back under the covers.

Stiles told himself that he must have dreamt the sound of the door. He was having a weird dream, it probably just _sounded_ real. No-one was sneaking into his room in the middle of the night. There were much more valuable things to steal in the stables at night than him. There was nothing to be scared of. 

Who was he kidding? He was terrified. It _really_ sounded like someone had been in his room. Isaac had told him that a security guard passed through the stables every hour or so to check that things hadn’t been stolen from Deaton’s office and that the horses were all safe, but they wouldn’t go peering into storerooms would they? Maybe, if they didn’t know it was occupied. Stiles made a note to ask Deaton for a lock on his door.

He hid his head under the covers and closed his eyes. He remembered doing this the first few times he’d been completely alone when his Dad was on a night shift. He’d spent all night buried under a tent of his covers texting Scott, furiously ignoring the scary, empty house outside his little cocoon of safety.

Then his Dad had pointed out that sticking your head under the covers doesn’t make the bad guys go away, and in fact means that you aren’t prepared for when they sneak up on you. Nor could you give a good description if you survived an attack.

Stiles promptly stopped hiding under the covers and it took another six months or so before he dared trying being home alone whilst his Dad worked.

 

* * *

 

Stiles must have slipped to sleep at some point, because the next thing he was aware of was the tinny twinkling of his phone alarm at 4:30am. His body felt like it had been in a fight with the mattress all night. And lost. He tried to shake and flex out the worst of the aches and pains but some of them promised to take hours to shift. He dragged himself under the lukewarm stream of water in the ice-cold concrete shower cubicle and shivered through the whole process of getting dressed. He picked out a t-shirt that would be less offensive to Mr Harris than his Batman one and was pulling on his boots when there was a short rap of knuckles against the door.

“Come in.”

Deaton swung open the door.

“Just came to check that you had survived your first wake up call. Did you sleep well?”

“Yeah, yeah fine.”

“Good. Come with me and let me walk you through what I want you to do in the mornings.”

Which, Stiles found out, was to make life as easy for his fellow stablehands who would roll in to work in a couple of hours time. Until then his duties were mostly cleaning, sweeping, sorting, passing an eye over the horses under his charge so that anything wrong was noticed quickly. The stables were made up of tough polo ponies, a collection of rangy racehorses and then the show jumpers, mostly owned and ridden by Cora and her friends who paid to board their horses there. The staff were split accordingly, with only a few that had responsibilities amongst them all.

At first Stiles was completely blinded by the sheer number of horses and the amount of equipment and needs each of them had. It was no wonder the Hale stables hired so many people.

By the time 6:30am rolled around he was relieved to find Isaac in one of the stalls. His new friend was shrugged into a thick knitted jumper that was too long on the sleeves, and he already had a stiff body brush in his hand ready for his first task of the day. For a tall guy with broad shoulders Isaac was pretty good at folding in on himself like a piece of origami. He was able to take up almost zero space in the area around him. A worrying ability for someone who was over six foot tall.

“Morning Stiles.”

“Hey Isaac.”

“How are you doing?”

“I’m fine! Er…although now that you mention it, I’m a bit lost.”

Isaac’s wonky smile was a mixture of pity and amusement.

“I have no idea where I have to go and whose tack I’m holding.”

“Ok. Let me help.”

Isaac was more of a help than Stiles dared admit. He felt flustered and stupid. After all he was supposed to be _good_ at this, he’d thought that this was the one thing in the world that he was capable of doing. But moving stables was like moving in any job. The basic tasks were the same but they were done with different equipment, in a different setting and in a different way. Things were stricter here and by the time breakfast rolled around he had been corrected more times than not.

At least he wasn’t getting pens thrown at him like Coach used to do.

“I feel useless,” Stiles said, trying not to whine, as he trudged along the pebble driveway up to the back of the house with Isaac.

“You’ll pick it up, Stiles. You’ve only been here, what, two hours? You’ll get to know the horses you’re working with inside out soon enough.”

Even the service entrance to the Hale house was grand, grander than anything Stiles was used to. If he had a cap he’d have felt the urge to remove it as they drew close. 

The area immediately outside it was busy with deliveries and staff moving purposefully from one area to another, the picture of organisation and control. Only one man remained motionless at the top of the stairs, smoking a cigarette, as still as a sentry. The stable staff streaming past this silent figure looked ragged and dirty in comparison to his immaculate blue suit and spotless hands.

Isaac nodded to him as they approached.

“Hi Boyd.”

Stiles made to keep walking but Isaac stopped and he crashed right into his back.

“Boyd, this is Stiles.”

Boyd’s dark skin contrasted with the brutal white of his shirt cuffs as he raised the hand holding his cigarette in a hello.

“New stablehand?”

“Yeah, that’s me. And you?”

Boyd’s expression was as unflinching as marble, “I work with Peter Hale in the wealth management fund side of Hale Investments.”

Stiles nodded, “Oh. Cool. I think, anyway, I didn’t really understand half of what you just said.”

“Boyd basically helps the Hales get richer,” Isaac said with a small smile. The grunt under Boyd’s breath could have been a chuckle.

“And I don’t have to spend my days up to elbows in horse stink. Works for me.”

“Boyd’s worked here since he left college. He doesn’t mind talking to us dirty stable lot.”

“Sometimes,” Boyd said, unreadable behind the smoke of his cigarette.

“How long have you been here, Boyd?”

“Eighteen months. Peter Hale hired me out of college. It’s one of the best jobs out there in the industry, if you can get it.”

Another person swept around the side of the burning and drew up beside the little group.

“I thought my ears were burning,” Peter said with a sharky grin. Isaac took such a big jump back that he nearly tumbled down the stairs.

“Hi Peter,” Boyd said smoothly. He handed over a cigarette and held up the lighter for him.

“Thank you Boyd. We aren’t thinking about moving from the stables to investment, are we Isaac?”

“No,” Isaac said, quickly, “Just introducing Stiles to Boyd.”

“What’s a Stiles?” Peter asked, blowing smoke out of the corner of his mouth. Then his eyes landed on Stiles, “Ah. I’m guessing that is.”

“Yeah,” Stiles said, careful to mind his manners, “This is a Stiles.”

“He’s our new stablehand,” Isaac mumbled, “Look, we’d better get to breakfast.”

Boyd gave them a nod goodbye. Peter blew more smoke.

Despite himself, Stiles felt his back prickle as they left the pair behind. He wasn’t sure if he was imagining it, but it felt like Peter’s eyes followed him the whole way into the building.

* * *

 

Derek pushed around the raw buckwheat and almond milk porridge that he’d been served for breakfast. Across the kitchen island the family chef Pablo was going through the cupboards and listing what would be needed in the next restocking.

Derek had insisted that he could make his own breakfast but apparently the porridge was already made and Pablo had slapped it into a bowl before Derek could argue.

Laura wasn’t around and all he’d seen of Cora was the flutter of her hair behind her as she ran out of the front door; the flash of a leather jacket and her tiny silver bag and she was gone. Derek couldn’t help but wonder whether they had both disappeared just so that they could avoid Pablo’s breakfast.

Derek looked over his shoulder, made sure that a rogue family member wasn’t about to creep up on him, then reached across with his foot and pulled out the hidden garbage bin in the kitchen island. As quietly as possible he spooned out the porridge into the garbage, wincing as it plopped loudly into the bin liner, and then slid the door shut silently.

“Morning Derek.”

Derek clattered the bowl back onto the kitchen top and shoved the spoon in his mouth to give the impression he were mid-mouthful.

Or the impression that he was an idiot with a spoon in his mouth.

It took a moment for him to recognise the owner of the voice, and when he did he felt stupidly relieved.

“Chris,” Derek nodded. He dropped the spoon into his bowl. At least he could trust Chris not to tattle on him.

“Morning Pablo,” Chris said with a twinkle in his eye and a smirk on his face in Derek’s general direction. He had definitely seen Derek disposing of the evidence, then. The chef waved over his shoulder.

“Derek, you haven’t seen Peter around have you?”

“No. Why?”

He hadn’t heard Peter’s name cross Chris’s lips in years, not unless it were as an insult or insinuation. He was holding a manila folder in his hand and, as usual, looked a little uncomfortable being in the house. Derek could see that he had done his best to scrape his boots clean but he was still mud-spattered over his jeans and there were bits of wood chip in the sleeve of the jumper peeking out from under his heavy jacket.

“He wanted me to do some research into…a few things. He asked me to bring it to him myself. So that’s what I’m doing.”

“He _asked_ you to do something?”

The hidden question was: he asked you in _person?_

“Yeah.”

Chris looked just as bemused by it as Derek.

“What is it?”

“Nothing that interesting.”

Of course his vagueness made it all the more interesting.

“Do you think he’s with your mother, maybe?”

“He could be.”

“How is she doing?”

“She’s the same.”

Derek wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not any more.

“Ok,” Chris tapped the folder against the kitchen island, “I’ll keep searching for him. See you later Derek.”

“See you.”

Chris disappeared back down the hallway, craning a head this way and that as he passed the rooms, although not quite daring to enter any of them.

“Now Derek, I made a spinach and wheatgrass smoothie this morning. Your sisters haven’t been down yet so there’s plenty going, would you like some?”

Derek looked back across the kitchen island to Pablo.

“Er…actually, I’ve got to get going. Thank you, anyway.”

He deposited his porridge bowl into the sink and hightailed it out of the kitchen before anything green could be poured in a glass for him.

Derek had nothing against healthy eating per se. He worked out, he liked to be in shape, and he wanted to keep his weight down and his strength up for polo. But he drew a line at Pablo’s new healthy eating plan. It had left him starving most of the time. That morning in the shower he’d fantasised about a hamburger and a plate of fries. Not the sort of fantasy you normally had in the shower, but Derek liked red meat and Pablo was denying all of them even a sniff of the good stuff.

The best place to get some decent food that wasn’t Pablo-influenced was the staff kitchen downstairs, and that was where he was headed.

He hadn’t realised that it would clash with breakfast time for staff. He checked the time and balked at how early it was. What was Cora doing up and out of the house before 8am? He made a note to text her later. Even if she lied about where she was, at least a reply would mean she was alive.

Derek nearly turned around at the sight and smells of the busy kitchen. It looked like the stable staff had just arrived and the two long tables where they ate were fit to bursting with people who smelt like hay and horses sitting elbow to elbow. It was hot and humid with the steam of cooking, but it was the smell of food that convinced Derek to go in. They were serving porridge, but this was the good stuff. Thick and creamy and drizzled with honey.

“Here you go.”

Before he could try to talk himself into it a bowl had been placed in one hand and a spoon in the other.

“Let me guess,” Deaton said, smooth and amused, “You ran away from Pablo’s cooking?”

Derek took a moment to breathe in the smell of the porridge, “I don’t know why they moved Ennis to cooking down here.”

“I believe it was what your uncle would call ‘politics’. What with Ennis’s recent conviction for aggravated assault and all.”

Deaton placed his own empty bowl onto the side and turned to stand alongside Derek. Derek felt a little stupid standing there spooning porridge in his mouth in the middle of the room, but he certainly didn’t want to try to squeeze onto any of the tables.

“Will you be coming down for a ride after work today, Derek?”

“Probably,” he said, swallowing a mouthful.

Deaton was looking at him out of the corner of his eye and it unnerved him.

And then he saw him. Stiles. He was sat in the middle of the melee, squeezed up against Isaac and laughing along with the rest of him. He had a grin that threatened to swallow the rest of his face, and when he laughed his whole body did too. His eyes were two specks of candlelight amongst the dim gloom of the staff kitchen, although they were smudged black beneath by lack of sleep. He was wearing a rough black button-down that looked like it had spent a lot of time in a stable, and had a tiny strand of hay clinging to the back of his neck. Derek tried his best not to stare.

Was Derek embarrassed that he had seen that guy sleeping a few hours ago? A little. He was more furious at himself for letting his anxieties get the better of him. But it didn’t matter, because Stiles hadn’t woken up and he hadn’t been caught. It was fine. No-one knew. He thanked whatever deity there might be that the security guard had simply stopped outside Stiles’s door to pause for a sneeze. And Derek had sunk with relief when he’d heard the tinny sound of music through the door. The security guard had had earphones in, which meant he wouldn’t hear the sound of Stiles chasing curly fries in his dreams. If Derek hadn’t been cowering in a storeroom trying not to get caught he would have taken issue with the security guard for having earbuds in when he was supposed to be protecting their property. As it was, he’d left it. He’d waited until the man’s footsteps had faded away and then slipped out of the room. As he’d left the room Stiles had still been asleep.

Derek had bolted back to the house and sat up in his window seat until the sun came up, thinking about a lot of things that didn’t make a lot of sense. Like the freckles on Stiles’s face. And his curly fry-mutterings. Then he’d had to have a shower to help push the night’s events and subsequent thoughts firmly behind him. He was overtired, that was all. And anyway, he’d got away with it, no matter how close it may have been. That was what mattered.

“You look tired, Derek,” Deaton said, “Didn’t get much sleep last night?”

Derek was busy choking on his porridge when someone else joined them by the kitchen counter. He was juggling about five bowls in his hands.

“Hey, Deaton. Hey Derek.”

Derek tried to give Stiles a nod, but he was also desperately trying to fight the bits of porridge lodged in his throat and his hold back the watering from his eyes.

“The guys asked me to get seconds,” Stiles said, to Deaton, because Derek clearly looked busy doing his own thing, “Guess that comes with being new.”

Deaton stood to the side and pointed to the warming pans where Stiles could refill the bowls. Derek used it as his excuse to put away his own bowl and leave the room quietly. Then he found a corner of an empty corridor in which to cough his lungs up.

 

* * *

 

 

“I don’t know what the problem is. She is a grade A bitch, we don’t have to feel sorry for her.”

“Yeah. Seriously, Becky, she’s a cow.”

“I don’t know. I mean, if she is pregnant she has a kid for _life_. She might have to leave school. And, like, never come back.”

“She could just get the thing adopted.”

“Cora! You can’t say that!”

“What?”

“Well, if I ever got pregnant accidentally, _I_ could never do that. You never know where they might end up. You could be giving your child to _any_ loser.”

“You never know, it might work out. Look at Jackson. Adopted by one of the richest families in the US.”

There was a low murmur of agreement between the two other girls. Stiles had been eavesdropping on their conversation for the last five minutes. He was checking over the hundred million pieces of tack in the tack room and was trying to get an idea how the Hale stables did things. Cora Hale and her two friends - Becky and Eliza, apparently - were at the front of the room supposedly getting what they need for a ride, but had spent the entire time talking smack about their classmates. Stiles was sure that they hadn’t seen him, so had tried to stay as quiet as possible. The gossip reminded him of high school: in one way it was nostalgic, in another it just reminded him how glad he was that he didn’t go there anymore.

Teenagers were horrible, horrible people. Especially when it came to each other.

That being said, he was interested to hear that Jackson was adopted. He hadn’t ever heard that before, but it seemed common knowledge amongst these three. Maybe it was the sort of thing you needed a trust fund that matched Jackson’s to know.

“My god, who cares,” Cora sighed, finally sliding the saddle she needed off its rack, “I bet she’s not even pregnant.  I bet she’s just got hysterical pregnancy, or whatever. You know how much she loves the drama.”

“Yeah but usually the two of us sit out of swim class together when we get our periods, ‘cos we get them at the same time. Last week, she went swimming. _But_ I was off because I was on my period. There you go.”

Stiles pulled a face. Ok, the girls definitely didn’t know he was back here if they were talking about their periods. And now he felt like a real creeper hidden away listening to them.

Thankfully their voices fell away and the fate of their classmate who may or may not be pregnant disappeared with them. Stiles was finally able to fully focus on the task at hand.

Except, of course, his mind was everywhere. He’d just come from Deaton’s office, where he’d asked for a lock for his door.

“You know, just in case people still think it’s a storeroom. I just don’t think anyone deserves to walk in on me in my tighty-whities in the morning.”

Deaton had chuckled and acquiesced that a lock was a good idea, and promised to order an inner bolt for the door and then a key to be fitted so that it could be locked during the day. That was all fine, except Deaton still looked seriously amused when Stiles had left the office. In fact as he walked away from his door he was sure he could hear Deaton laughing softly to himself.

Was it really that funny that he’d ask for a lock? Maybe that was the sort of thing that tickled Deaton.

Anyway, he had to keep his mind on work. Most of the horses were out being exercised or turned out into the fields for the rest of the day. Normally Stiles would be helping out, but Deaton had suggested that Stiles got used to the more practical workings of the stables on his first day.

He didn’t bother to look up or move when he heard the scrape of a boot on the concrete. People had been coming in and out of the tack room all afternoon. Before Cora and her friends there had been numerous people leaning in to grab things. Isaac had even appeared at one point to give him a cup of coffee, which had made Stiles like Isaac all the more. Not only he was clearly good with both the horses and a coffee machine, he always had a sharp remark or a grin on hand. Stiles still had no idea why the guy folded himself up the way he did, it was worrying, but he guessed he would work that out in time.

The footsteps had disappeared at the front of the tack room. Stiles stood up from his little stool and stretched out his aching limbs. He didn’t fancy the idea of a lukewarm shower and a night in that murderous bed again.

He walked around the racks and shelves that cluttered the room and weaved his way to the front. He was pretty sure he had a good idea of their system, and he was itching to put himself to proper use. He didn’t notice the person standing in a darkened area of the tack room pulling out a saddle until he had crashed right into him.

“Oh my god! Crap, I’m sorry! I didn’t see you there. Sorry, sorry.”

When he finally stopped gabbling he realised that his profuse apologies weren’t really necessary. The person he had run into hadn’t moved an inch, and Stiles himself was on his butt on the floor.

God, was this guy made out of concrete? It was only until the figure stood back to look down at him that the light caught their face.

“Oh. Derek. Hey. Sorry about…”

Stiles waved a hand between them. Derek raised an eyebrow a fraction. Stiles realised that, yes, he was still sat on the floor, and jumped to his feet.

“I didn’t realise there was anyone else in here. Wasn’t really paying attention.”

“I guessed that,” Derek said, tersely. He braced the saddle along his arm and slid out the bridle hanging alongside it. He turned his back to Stiles to head out of the room and Stiles followed him down the rabbit warren into the front of the room.

And, ok, he used the excuse to take a long hard look at Derek’s backside. So sue him. He was living in a tiny room with a terrible bed and no social life, but that didn’t mean he had to be monkish about _everything_. And Derek was easy on the eye.

“Can I help you?”

He was still staring. And Derek had turned in the doorway to look at him under eyebrows that were most certainly judging him. Man, those were expressive eyebrows. Stiles would have no problem staring at those for a bit either. Maybe he had a thing about eyebrows. Was that a thing? Could you have an eyebrow kink?

“Er…no, oh, sorry, I was just trying to work out whose tack that was. Trying to get it all up here, you know.”

He tapped himself too hard on the temple and winced.

Derek gave a tiny huff to indicate that Stiles’s excuse was just about acceptable, “It’s Lunar’s. I’m taking her out on a hack.”

“Oh, cool, well…do you need any help?”

Stiles felt distinctly pinned under Derek’s stare, “I can manage to tack my own horse, Stiles.”

“Oh, yeah, no, sure, sorry, I just…I’m still not really sure what my duties are here, you know? At my old place we had people pay for lessons and we had to get the horses all ready for them before they arrived. Well, sometimes, other times they wanted the kids to give it a go themselves. Always a nightmare, by the way, never let an eight year try and put a bridle on a horse when they don’t know what they’re doing, they’ll take its eye out.”

Now Derek’s stare looked a little alarmed. 

“Er, anyway. Enjoy your ride.”

Derek gave a stiff little nod and left. Stiles sagged against the wall of the tack room and let out a small groan.

God, what was wrong with him? He always knew he had a little crush on Derek Hale. He’d seen the guy around Beacon Hills, knew about him from the local gossip rags, but it wasn’t like he had lusted at him from afar or anything. It certainly wasn’t the reason he had come to the Hale stables. It was just a nice added extra. He hadn’t even thought about it until he arrived, but now he seemed simultaneously eager to please yet incapable of conducting himself properly around the guy.

‘The guy’s a douche,’ he told himself sternly, ‘That’s what everyone says. No-one’s seen him crack a smile. He’s an unsmiling, no-humour scowler, that’s what everyone says. And you’ve seen nothing to contradict that. Get yourself together Stiles.’

Feeling a little better after that internal pep talk, Stiles took a deep breath and left the tack room to find Isaac and some tasks that would be useful.

It was only as he helping Isaac and a few others to exercise some of the polo ponies - officially his favourite job in the world by the way - that another thought popped into his head on the subject of Derek.

‘Plus, he’s an arsonist and I don’t really fancy my house set on fire for being caught staring at him’.

 

* * *

 

The rest of the week passed in a similar fashion for Stiles. He found it easier to sleep on his hideous bed, and the early morning alarm got a little less hideous when he made sure he went to bed at a decent time. The rest of the staff started to expect more of him as the days went on and he rose to the challenge. He enjoyed it. It was better than doing the same old stuff he’d been doing for years at the Marshes with Coach roaring at him every ten minutes. And it was one hundred times ever that having his brain slowly fried from boredom at the library. He and Isaac were becoming pretty good friends, and by the time his first week was over Stiles was determined to learn a little more about the guy.

“Did you go to Beacon Hills High?” Stiles asked him, early on the morning of his first week anniversary. They were leading four horses into the paddock and one of them had decided he really liked the smell of Stiles’s ear.

“Er, yeah.”

“I thought you’d be in my grade. ‘Fraid to say I don’t remember you if you were.”

“Oh, no, I was held back a year. There was…family stuff.”

Stiles paused, waiting to see if Isaac was going to keep talking.

“My brother Cameron died. He was a few years older than me, and in the military. Got blown up by an IED in Iraq. And my Mum wasn’t very well, and my Dad didn’t take it all very well. So I stayed at home for a few months to help. By the time I got back to school they decided I should just redo my year again, I had missed too much. It was fine, really, it’s not like I’m very academic. I couldn’t have caught up if I tried.”

Stiles leaned away from the horse’s insistent nibbling of his ear, “That sucks,” he said. He knew better to say that he was sorry.

“When my Mum died I was only eight. And when my Dad went back to work I had no-one else to look after me so I just went straight back to school. It was weird. Even eight year olds know when something is wrong. Suddenly the class bully started being nice to me. I hated it.”

“Yeah. Maybe I dodged a bullet. By the time I got back to school everyone had sort of forgotten about it and the kids in my grade didn’t even know me. They just treated me like a new transfer student. I kept going to school even around the time my Mum died the year after. No-one else knew. I couldn’t have coped with all the sad faces and the pity.”

Stiles drew to a stop and let Isaac go ahead of him. Isaac pushed open the swing gate on the paddock and led the two horses in, Stiles bringing the other two along behind.

“Cameron knew Derek,” Isaac said, as he slipped the halters off his two charges, “They used to play in a Beacon Hills basketball league together.”

“Really? Derek plays basketball?”

“Used to. Don’t think he does anymore. At least I can’t imagine he has time, what with all the polo.”

“What does Derek _do_?” Stiles asked, hooking one of the horse’s halter of his shoulder, “For a job, I mean.”

“He works with his uncle. All of them do, apart from Cora obviously. I guess he’ll just go into the family business.”

“He doesn’t want to go to college?”

“Guess not. Why would you need to, if you’ve got a family business like the Hale one to go into?”

“Yeah but wouldn’t he want to get a bit of time out of the house? I mean, I love my Dad, but I was pretty eager to come here and live by myself for a bit.”

“I don’t know. I think the Hales are all really close. Maybe he doesn’t care.”

Stiles had got the second horse’s halter off but it was still determinedly nibbling on his ear.

“Er, Isaac. What’s this one’s problem?”

Isaac laughed, “Oh yeah, Finbar has a thing for ears. He likes new people’s ears. When I first arrived I had to bring him in here and check all the paddock fencing and he followed me around every inch of it, chewing on my ear. If he hurts you just give him a push and he should give up.”

“You’re a weird horse,” Stiles said to Finbar. The horse just huffed against his ear, blowing his hair this way and that.

“He likes you.”

“I guess in this job I need to take the love where I can,” Stiles said, bringing a hand up to scratch the horse’s huge head.

“So, no girlfriend waiting for you to come back when you have days off?” Isaac asked slyly, “Or boyfriend, maybe?”

“Neither,” Stiles said. He gave Finbar a final pat on the side as they left the paddock, “I’m flying solo. Like a lone wolf. Or just a sad loser. What about you?”

“Same.”

“Apart from this girl Allison Argent, right?”

Isaac went bright red, “Oh yeah. I forgot I told you about that.”

“I have a memory like an elephant.”

“We didn’t date, or anything. I just really liked her. We used to hang out a bit, when I had time off. But then…I don’t know, I noticed her Dad started appearing wherever we were. And being in the house when Allison said he wasn’t going to be. In the end he kind of froze me out and Allison stopped trying. I don’t even think Allison thought of me that way. Chris is just seriously protective.”

They were back in the stable yard now, and stood to the side to let one of the staff for the racehorses lead a horse through the gate.

“It was really funny, actually. At the polo game one of the photographers was definitely chatting Allison up. She seemed pretty into it, at least there was a lot of laughing and flicking hair. And I could see Chris on the other side of the paddock. He looked about ready to jump the fence and run through the polo game to tackle the guy. By the time he did get round there, the photographer was gone.”

“Wait,” Stiles said, throwing his hand to stop Isaac in his tracks, “One of the photographers? A young guy, brown hair, dopey look on his face?”

“Yeah, that was him. Why?”

 

* * *

 

That night on the phone to Scott, Stiles was indignant.

“I can’t believe I felt guilty for slipping away to ask Deaton for a job, which you gave me so much stick for by the way, and you were just flirting with some girl!”

“She’s not just some girl! I liked her. Like, _really_ liked her.”

“I was gone for twenty minutes, how can you know that quickly?”

“I just did, dude.”

“From what Isaac says this girl is hot, why was she talking to you?”

“Oh, _thanks_. I’ll have you know that she kept smiling at me whilst I was taking pictures. When you pretended to go to to the bathroom for half an hour, I went over and asked if I could take hers. And I said I needed to know her name and age and who she was. For a caption.”

“Smooth.”

“I know right? Anyway, we got talking. She’s really great, Stiles. She seemed to really like me.”

“Well I hate to burst your bubble Scotty but Isaac says that her Dad is super protective. Apparently he clocked you two talking. And I’ve met him, dude. He has a hell of a lot of guns.”

“Can you have visitors there at all? Do you think one weekend I could come up and see you? Maybe Allison would be there.”

“Did you not hear what I just said, Scott? Her Dad has _guns_. Weapons, with bullets, very very bad bullets.”

“He’s not going to shoot me, Stiles.”

“Ok maybe not at first, but he looks like you could crack your skull with one fist. I bet he’d start with that.”

“Whatever. When can I come up?”

“So you’re just coming to see her, then?” Stiles cried, a hand on his heart for extra dramatic affect even though Scott couldn’t see him, “I’m hurt. Scandalised. My heart bleeds.”

“Oh shut up. Of course I want to come and see you. I haven’t seen you in like ten days. I don’t think I’ve not seen you for that long since…”

“You went on that trip with your Mum to see your aunt that one time. That was two weeks. Look, let me work out what I can do about having a guest here. I don’t really get weekends off so I’ll try to find out when I next have some time off and maybe you can come then.”

“Awesome.”

“And I’ll try to get you to meet Allison. I haven’t even met her myself, but I’ll try.”

“Thanks dude.”

“Yeah well that’s just the sort of selfless friend I am.”

“See you later Stiles.”

“Bye.”

Stiles tossed his phone onto his bed, made sure the bolt was slid into place on his door, and settled down under a heap of blankets. Just as it had the rest of the week, sleep came swiftly and deeply.

He was annoyed more than anything when voices jerked him awake an hour or so later. It must have been past midnight, and Stiles was sorely tempted to just roll over and go back to sleep. Maybe it was the security guards talking. Or Deaton. Basically, it wasn’t his problem.

Except the voices didn’t sound particularly friendly. Angry, in fact, and getting louder and louder. Stiles flung off the blankets and jammed his shoes onto his feet. If he was about to interrupt some horse thieves then he at least should have something on his feet.

He grabbed a hoody from a drawer and followed the sound of the shouting to the horses.

“I toldyou not to bring that up.”

“Is there a subject I _am_ allowed to mention about nowadays?”

“You have no idea what you are talking about, that’s why.”

“Are you kidding me, Peter?”

“You’re yelling.”

“I’m not _yelling,_ I’m _arguing._ With you. Again. Deja-vu doesn’t even begin to cover it.”

“Listen, I asked you to do something for me as a small favour.”

“Again. If you don’t remember, you asked me a similar favour last week.”

“This is all part of the same favour.”

“Starting to look a lot less ‘small’ to me.”

“If you don’t want to do it, don’t do it.”

“I already did,” Chris snapped. Stiles creaked forward to try to see a little better and caught the moment Chris pulled a folder out from underneath his jacket and slapped it against Peter’s chest. They were standing in concrete run between the stalls, the only light the red security bulbs giving off a bloody tinge. Chris was wearing a well-worn jacket and jeans but Peter Hale was only in a black shirt and suit trousers. And it was not what you’d call warm in the stables.

Stiles watched as Peter flipped open the file and flicked through its contents.

“Well?” Chris asked, after a moment of pause. Peter folded it shut.

“Exactly what I needed.”

“Is a thank you ever going to come my way?”

“Now now, Chris,” Peter said, a smirk on his face and one in his voice, “You’re starting to sound a little needy.”

Chris huffed, “Fine. I am going home. To bed. To sleep at a normal hour like a normal person. Next time you want a meeting, come to my house. No more clandestine meetings in stables.”

“Why? Afraid people are going to talk?” Peter asked, all mock innocence. Chris shoved his hands in his pockets and left. It was only as he turned away that Stiles realised what his body had been concealing from his line of sight. At the other end of the stables, hiding in the shadow of a doorway but now clear to see from Stiles’s angle, was Derek.

A very angry Derek, going by the look he was giving Stiles. That was an impressive glare at that distance.

Peter, who appeared to remain completely oblivious of the two, sauntered to the nearest horse - one of his favourite polo ponies if Isaac’s information was correct - and took a moment to stroke the delighted beasts’s muzzle. Then he left the stables too, and Stiles was right in the crosshairs of Derek’s glare.

When he moved away from the doorway Stiles couldn’t help it, he leapt backwards, mouth opening and closing stupidly. He seriously considering running into his room and throwing the bolt.

Derek covered the space in a frighteningly small number of strides. Suddenly he was standing in front of a still gaping Stiles, looking like he was doing his best to burn the new stableboy to cinders with his eyes alone.

“What the hell were you doing?”

“Hey,” Stiles said, finally starting to feel something other than blind terror, “I sleep in here you know. I heard people arguing and came to check that they weren’t stealing everything not bolted to the floor. That includes your horses, by the way. What was I supposed to do, ignore it?”

Derek’s scowl eased slightly.

“My Uncle and Chris Argent weren’t about to steal all the horses, were they?”

“No but it’s seriously dark in here isn’t it, I didn’t know it was them!”

“And when you did, you just thought you’d hang around to eavesdrop?”

That was slightly trickier to get away with.

“I was just…ok, fine, I was eavesdropping a little.”

Then something dawned on him, “Wait, you were eavesdropping too.”

The scowl got worse, “He’s my Uncle.”

“That doesn’t mean it isn’t eavesdropping. Unless he _knew_ you were lurking in a dark doorway?”

Derek was still for a moment. He looked about ready to snarl something back. His jaw flexed and went tense for a moment, and then he was walking away.

“Don’t tell anyone about what you saw. Or heard,” he said over his shoulder.

“Yes Mr Bond,” Stiles called after him. He could hear Derek’s growl across the distance between them.

Yep, Stiles was definitely double locking his door tonight.

 

* * *

 

 

When Derek got back to his room he sat on the floor at the end of his bed and allowed Artemis to flop comfortingly in his lap. He had a headache like the worst kind of hangover and a mind full of questions. No doubt they were the cause of the headache. What the hell was going on with Chris and Peter? What sort of research did Peter need Argent to do? When did those two even start speaking to one another again? Not that he knew why they stopped speaking in the first place.

He was trying to work through the tangle in his head, his fingers deep in Artemis’s fur and Castor snoring fitfully at his side, when something in his mind’s eyes jumped at him: Stiles’s face, all panicked and flushed from being caught. There’d been two little dots of pinks on his cheeks. And his eyes had been wide enough that Derek could see the flecks of gold in them. Honest to god flecks of gold. Was that even a thing? Had he completely lost his mind? And the individual freckles across Stiles’s face and neck had been close enough to map. Just like he’d used to map the stars on his bedroom ceiling.

Ok, he had definitely lost his mind.

He found himself taking another late-night shower. Except this time it was a cold one.

 

 


	6. Headaches

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stiles has a big night, Derek lurks some more, and Isaac ducks his head one too many times.

Stiles was drunk. Very drunk. He hadn’t intended to go this far, but it turns out that exhaustion from  a whole month of nonstop work at the Hale stables plus a few beers was enough to knock him sideways. It was his first break since he started, bar a half day he’d had to go back home and collect more of his stuff. He’d had lunch with his Dad - sat at his desk in the police station, but some good catching up time nonetheless - and even managed to squeeze in a visit to Scott. But that evening he’d been back in the stables helping Isaac bring the horses in from the paddock and give them their final feed of the day.

Today was different. He was off for two and a half days, it was Friday night, he had smuggled Scott onto the estate and they, along with Isaac and Boyd, were getting hammered.

Stiles hadn’t expected Boyd to join them, but Isaac had somehow managed to slide a message to him during the day to come down if he fancied it. Seemed he did. He’d brought a bottle of whiskey with him and that was their undoing.

“Oh my god, I’m not going to be able to drive home,” Scott mumbled into the grass he was splayed out on. It was freezing in their secluded spot by the trees. They weren’t far from the Argent’s cottage, but far enough that they weren’t - hopefully - being heard. Apparently this was the chosen spot for illicit late night drinking by the stable staff.

“You can just stay with me Scotty,” Stiles said sleepily into the grass.

“On what, your little cot bed?” Isaac chipped in from one of the logs being used as a bench, “ _You_ barely fit on there Stiles, never mind two of you.”

“Wait, Isaac, where are you going to sleep? And you Boyd?”

Boyd was smoking a cigar, because of course. He had offered it to each of them and they had all taken a curious puff. Isaac had nearly coughed up his left lung, Scott had complained it made him feel sick and Stiles had just felt light-headed. Maybe the three of them weren’t sophisticated enough for cigars. Boyd let a mouthful of smoke tumble from between his lips before he answered, “I’m staying with Erica.”

“Who’s Erica?” Stiles asked, heaving himself up onto his elbows.

“She’s Peter’s personal assistant,” Isaac supplied. He picked up the bottle of whisky and shook it experimentally, “She has a room in the Hale house. So that she can respond to Peter’s every whim.”

“Hey,” Boyd grunted, humourlessly.

“So you two are…” Stiles waggled his eyebrows.

“Yes. We met when I started working for Peter.”

“Does he know?”

“Do you think I’d tell you bozos if he didn’t?”

“So what about you Isaac, where are you going to be sleeping?”

“One of Cora’s friends has sold their horse, so the stall we were keeping it in is empty for now. _But_ it’s still filled with straw. Clean straw.”

“Awww,” Stiles pouted, “That sounds comfy! That sounds much better than my bed! Can I camp with you? And Scott? Boyd! Do you want to join?!”

“Er, no thank you.”

“Oh come on, it’ll be fun.”

“You’ll just get caught. Doesn’t Deaton live in the stables?”

“Above the other end of them, yeah. But he won’t hear us.”

 “So Scott,” Isaac said as he passed around the bottle for another round, “What do you do?”

“I’m a picture researcher and photographer’s assistant in the art department at Society magazine.”

“Is that that posh magazine that takes photos of the Hales all the time?” Isaac asked, listing dangerously on the log.

“They were at the polo match,” Boyd supplied.

“ _I_ was at the polo match,” Scott beamed, “I got the assignment out of the blue because everyone else was sick. I took photos of the Hales. Man, Laura Hale is scary. And Peter Hale. Cora looked pretty frightening too. And Derek Hale. He was seriously scary. It was like his _eyebrows_ disapproved of me.”

Throughout Scott’s whole monologue Isaac had been giggling into the sleeve of his hoody.

“You know, they actually aren’t that bad when you get to know them.”

“Oh yeah,” Stiles hooted with disbelief, “Look at you Boyd, who could you be scared of? You’re built like a marine. But come on, I bet Peter Hale gives you the heebie-jeebies sometimes.”

Boyd inclined his head slightly, “He can be a tough boss, sometimes. He knows what he wants.”

“What about the others? What about the Hale kids?”

“I’m not saying anything to someone who works for Society magazine.”

“Aw come on dude,” Scott said as he threw his arms in the air, “I’m not a _reporter_. I don’t care. I’m not going to tell anyone I _swear_.”

Scott tried his best trustworthy face, which just made him look constipated.

“Honestly, Boyd, Scott won’t even remember what you tell him. And not ‘cos he’s wasted, he just has a terrible memory.”

“I do. I do,” Scott insisted, nodding his head violently.

“I’m amazed he remembers his name most days.”

“Look, the Hales are fine. Peter is a good boss and he works hard and yeah he’s a little weird, but that’s because he likes to have everything under his control. Laura is great, she just doesn’t suffer fools. Cora’s a teenage girl. They’re _all_ scary. Derek is…Derek’s just…”

Boyd took a long draw on his cigar, “Derek is Derek.”

“That’s profound,” Stiles said, a look of faux-rapture on his face.

“I don’t think he’s a _bad_ guy, he’s just not very good at people. He doesn’t understand them and so he doesn’t try. And his experience of people is so small that the minute you take him out of his comfort zone he gets grumpy.”

“Then the eyebrows come out,” Stiles added, solemnly.

“Exactly. He’s not good with crowds and handshaking.”

After that mini-dissertation in Derek’s innermost personality traits, Boyd went silent and dedicated his breath to his cigar. The conversation veered off onto a completely different tangent and by the time they heard a female giggle and a ‘shush-shush’ through the trees it was a few hours later.

“Who’s there?” Isaac called into the darkness. Two figures jumped into the ring of light cast by the small outside lights the boys had rigged up. One was a blonde bombshell artfully squeezed into a low cut top and indecently tight trousers, the other was all dark curls and giggling into her denim jacket.

“Hey boys, we’ve come to crash your party,” the blonde said. She folded herself over Boyd’s shoulder and plucked the cigar from his lips, “Ooh, thank you Boyd, these are my favourite.”

“This is Erica,” Boyd supplied unnecessarily as she climbed over his shoulders and deposited herself on the log next to him.

“You two are new,” she said, pointing at Scott and Stiles from where they were still sat legs akimbo on the grass. Her lips were painted a vibrant red that brought out the whites of her teeth and eyes. It was a mouth that suited a big, mischievous grin, but one that also looked ready to chew you up and spit you back out.

“Stiles is our new stablehand,” Isaac said, pointing out which one he was, “Scott is his friend from home.”

“Well nice to meet you two,” Erica said, placing the cigar between her lips.

“Guys, this is Allison Argent,” Isaac said, pointing to the dark haired girl standing at the edge of the light.

“Oh, hey, Allison, there’s room here,” Isaac said suddenly, shifting over to make the space. Still grinning from whatever her and Erica had been talking about on their walk over, Allison squeezed in next to him.

“Thanks Isaac.”

“Hey Allison,” Scott said. There was that look again. Like a puppy getting a belly rub.

“Hi Scott,” she said. She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, “What are you doing here?”

“Don’t worry, he’s not stalking you. He’s visiting me.”

“So you must be the new stablehand. My Dad mentioned you. Stiles, isn’t it?”

“That’s me.”

“Who told you guys we were coming down here tonight?”

“I was out in the back garden and I could hear you. So I called Erica and asked her if she wanted to gatecrash with me.”

“Shit, your Dad can’t hear us, can he?”

“He’s in town visiting his Dad.”

Stiles thought it a little odd she didn’t call him her ‘Granddad/Grandfather/Grandpa/any variation of the above’ but kept his enquiring mouth shut.

“Well then, let’s just hope they can’t hear us at the Hale house.”

“I wouldn’t worry about it,” Erica said, “At the end of the day Peter locked himself in his study with a bottle of whiskey, Laura has a migraine so is in bed and asleep, and Cora is at a friend’s house.”

“What about Derek?”

“God knows. He was working with Peter until late then he disappeared.”

* * *

 

Derek hadn’t intended to eavesdrop. The last time he’d done that he’d nearly been caught by Stiles. Stiles, who appeared to be cropping up in the most awkward of places all of the time. Like in the tack room, slamming right into him. Like in the stables whilst he was trying to figure out what the hell his uncle and Chris were up to.

Like in his dreams, where Stiles’s face and the memory of that brief feeling of his body against his in the tack room kept appearing.

Now he was turning up in the middle of Derek’s midnight walks. He had been vaguely aware that the staff used this place for drinking if they were celebrating something. After the Hale win at the polo match there had even been a bonfire and some food, with Chris Argent acting as a watchman over the booze for his daughter and any of the underage staff.

So perhaps it wasn’t the biggest surprise that he was hearing the rumble of voices in the dark as he walked past the west edge of the tree line. He had decided to have a long midnight walk when sleep failed to come to him once again. He had worked all day and most of the evening with his uncle and it was no doubt that that had brought on the insomnia. Once Peter had given up for the day and gone to drink himself to sleep, Derek had known he wasn’t going to get any himself. So he’d taken off his smarter clothes for the work day, pulled on some jeans, a ratty henley, his warmest leather jacket and slipped outside.

He’d have typically started off at the stables but at the moment visits there seemed to be a complete disaster, so for now he was avoiding the area completely. He’d been walking for half an hour by the time he stumbled across the late night drinking session.

He recognised Isaac’s laugh and Boyd’s voice. Erica was there too, he could see her long blonde hair and hear her razor sharp voice across the clear midnight air. He knew Allison’s giggle from a mile away.

And oh god, there he was. Stiles. Sat next to guy about his age and height with a wonky jaw and a soppy stare for Allison. It was the photographer from the polo match. What the hell was he doing here?

And no, Derek wasn’t creeping closer. He was just continuing his walk, that was all.

“Peter was in an awful mood today, and…oh god, listen to me. I hate this. Why do we have to live through theirs? What makes their lives any more interesting than ours, just because they have money?”

“It’s because we work here, live here, do everything here. They are our only form of entertainment.”

“Maybe for you. But I don’t have to spend my days manhandling their smelly horses. I’ve got a flatscreen TV in my room with more channels than I can count to. I can use their gym, their swimming pool, I’ve got enough money spare to go on whatever holiday I want. And yet every conversation I have always revolves around _them_. I don’t have my own life. It’s tragic.”

“You are so dramatic,” Isaac teased.

“Well I’m just realising how small and uninteresting my life is. All the gossip I have is about Peter Hale. It’s sad.”

“Go on then, tell us some.”

“As if. I don’t want to get fired.”

“Come on Erica! Don’t dangle that sort of thing in front of us!”

“No way.”

“Do he and your Dad talk much?” Stiles asked Allison. Derek’s fist clenched at his side. What the hell was he doing?

“Peter and my Dad? God, no. They hate each other.”

“Anyone know why?”

Erica flicked something off one of her manicured nails, “No. And that’s not me being coy, I really don’t know.”

“I think they fell out,” Allison said, nose scrunched up as she thought, “Years ago. I must have been, like, ten or eleven. They used to be quite good friends before. I don’t know what the argument was about but suddenly they just didn’t get along. Peter stopped coming to the house, my Dad stopped talking to him. It was like overnight they just hated each other.”

“Wonder what it was about.”

“Like I said: let’s not live our lives through these people.”

“And speaking of which, how about we find out some juicy stuff about our new stableboy?”

The group’s hollering and whistles managed to cover the sound of Derek taking a few steps closer. The moon was out and he needed to shelter himself from view in the trees. At least that was what he told himself.

“Oh that’s not fair! Scott’s here.”

“So?”

“So I can’t make stuff up because he’ll know!”

“Come on, Stiles, play along. I’ve been begging Isaac for details but he hasn’t said anything interesting.”

“Thanks.”

“Come on, spill. Do you have a girlfriend? A boyfriend?”

“I already told Isaac that one. No. I don’t.”

“He’s been in love with Lydia Martin since he was eleven.”

“Lydia _Martin_? Oh my god, how do you even know her?”

“Oh that’s really sweet, Erica. We went to one of those community camps together when we were eleven. I had to have something to do in the summer for a week or so whilst my Dad was pulling day shifts, and Scott had measles so I couldn’t stay at his. We had to help plant trees and sort recycling and make anti-litter posters and all that crap. Lydia was in my group and completely in charge. She bossed us around, made sure we won every challenge, and just generally stole my heart, ok?”

“Well she’s dating Jackson now dude, sorry to tell you.”

“Jackson? That douchebag with the jaw?”

“Yeah that’s him.”

“Doesn’t mean I have to stop loving her from afar.”

“Guess not, just don’t let Jackson know. He’ll turn you inside out.”

“Nice.”

“Anything else we can embarrass Stiles with, Scott?"

“When he came over to tell me that he had this job he was so happy he _cried_.”

“Scott!”

“No way.”

“Oh yeah, proper ‘movie star who just won an Oscar’ style crying.”

“I hate you.”

The tiny laugh slipped out of Derek’s lips before he could stop it. He clapped a hand to his mouth and pressed himself flat against the bark of the nearest tree. It didn’t seem anyone had heard him over their own laughter and Stiles’s protestations.

This was getting stupid. He wasn’t supposed to like people, so why was he lurking in the dark listening to them talk? Derek picked his way back over the grass and rejoined the track he’d been taking down past the trees. He froze when he heard footsteps through the grass behind him.

“I’m not _running away_ , I’m going to take a leak! Oh shut up!”

Stiles. Heading his way. Derek looked around for a place to hide and found none. No, no, this was not happening again. Where the hell had his dignity gone? How many times was he going to end up in this situation? Stiles had staggered close enough that he couldn’t be missed, but the clouds were masking the moon and in his leather jacket and dark jeans Derek must have blended into the night. Plus Stiles’s vision was no doubt clouded by the alcohol and he was clearly concentrating hard on not peeing on his shoes.

He was just finishing off and tucking himself back in - Derek wasn’t looking, obviously, but he took a guess from what he was hearing - when it happened. There was a delighted yelp just beyond Stiles in the densest part of the grass. A familiar yelp. The yelp of a very excited puppy. Stiles turned wildly to the sound and the brown blur of Castor shot out of the grass and hit him full on the chest. Puppy and human went down hard, Castor growling and snapping delightedly.

“Castor!” Derek yelled, “Castor, stop!”

Castor was generally a well-behaved puppy, but he was also very happy to meet new people and a little over-zealous. He was at that age where he’d grown to a decent size but wasn’t aware of his strength and abilities. As he had taken Stiles by surprise he had the upper hand and was using this advantage to lick every inch of Stiles’s face with his paws pinning his shoulders to the ground.

Lucky dog.

“Castor, stop,” Derek barked. Why was this one so hard to train? Artemis had been a breeze in comparison, and Ares who had died the year before had basically helped bring Derek up himself. Castor on the other hand was well behaved in a quiet room with just Derek, but the minute he had any other stimulus he decided that commands were more background noise than anything. Derek finally managed to get hold of Castor’s collar and hauled the dog off Stiles, who was wriggling like a caught fish.

“Jesus Christ!” Stiles yelled, scrambling sideways with one arm out to defend himself as Castor strained against his collar and barked like a trooper.

“Is that a wolf?! Did I just get attacked by a wolf?! Oh my god what the hell is a wolf doing here?!”

“He’s not a wolf,” Derek growled over Castor’s barking. He pulled Castor into a sitting position and snapped, “Castor, stop!”

It seemed his voice had finally punctured through the sheer thrill. Castor whined and dropped to the floor at the sound, knowing he had pushed it too far. Artemis chose the moment to bound up to his master’s side and Stiles looked ready to bolt.

“Oh my god they are wolves!”

“They’re not _wolves_ ,” Derek said, trying to bring his breathing back under control.

“They _look_ like wolves!”

“They’re a breed called Tamaskan.”

“A breed of _wolf_?”

“No, dog.”

“Oh. Wow. I really thought it was a wolf.”

Stiles also seemed to be getting himself under some sort of control. His panting was a little less vicious and he didn’t seem quite so terrified. It also seemed the fright had sobered him up rather.

“My god. Sorry. I thought-”

“It’s fine. He shouldn’t have done that. He’s only a puppy, but I am training him.”

Castor whined again, thoroughly admonished. Stiles chuckled.

“Hey, it’s ok. He’s cute, really. You know, when I don’t think that he’s trying to eat my face.”

Derek couldn’t help the little frown, “He was licking it.”

“Yeah well in that moment of sheer panic I thought it was more than that. He made me jump!”

“I know. Sorry.”

“Hey, don’t worry about it.” Stiles had pulled himself onto his knees, “Must be hard training a big dog like that.”

Derek grunted, “It shouldn’t be. They’re supposed to be working dogs. Clever.”

“Well this one looks well behaved,” Stiles said, leaning across to pet Artemis’s head. Artemis remained stoic. Derek liked that about his dog: he didn’t just fall for anyone who gave him a bit of attention.

That said, after a few moments of scratching behind his ears Derek could hear Artemis’s tail thumping against the grass. Traitor.

Castor saw the petting and rolled onto his back to show off his white belly, paws bent comically over his chest. Castor was much easier to sway.

“Aw, you’re just a sweetie really aren’t you?” Stiles cooed, and suddenly he was on his knees in front of Derek, bent over Castor and scratching the puppy’s belly, “Sorry boy, I thought you were the big bad wolf come to tear my face off. Look at you, you’re just a big bundle of adorable fluff.”

“He’s supposed to be a guard dog,” Derek grumbled.

“But look at that face!” Stiles cried, smushing Castor’s ears. Derek looked down at the stableboy and his dog’s squished face.

“You were terrified of him a minute ago.”

“Yeah but not any more, how could anyone be? He’s just too cute.”

Now Artemis was slinking around Derek’s legs to get in on the action, nudging Stiles’s shoulder with his muzzle. Double traitor. Since when did Artemis fight for attention with anyone but Derek?

“Hey good looking, getting jealous?”

For one horrifying moment Derek thought that Stiles was talking to him. Then he realised the question was directed at Artemis. Ok, so he was a little disappointed.

“Now I bet you scare off the bad guys don’t you handsome man? You’re beautiful. What are their names?”

“He’s Artemis. The puppy is Castor.”

Stiles turned his head to look up at him. The angle was awkward, and the soft fingers of moonlight through the thin cloud barely offered enough light to see Stiles’s face by, but he thought he saw interest in those eyes. 

“Like in Greek mythology.”

Derek blinked, “Yeah.”

“Oh, cool. Wasn’t Artemis a goddess, though?”

“I just liked the name. Plus both his parents were hunting dogs.”

“And Artemis was the goddesss of the hunt,” Stiles said, turned back to the dogs.

“When I got her I had another dog, much older, called Ares. It just worked.”

“I remember the name Castor but not much about him,” Stiles said, scratching Artemis under his chin with one hand and Castor on the belly with his other.

“He turns up in quite a few stories.”

“With his twin, Pollux, right? Hey, you should get a dog called Pollux.”

“Except when you shout Pollux it sounds like ‘bollocks’.”

Stiles thought about that for a beat, “Oh, yeah. Don’t call a dog that.”

He threw his head back and laughed, “That’d be so funny.”

He went back to scratching the dogs and for a moment Derek was just content to watch him. Then Stiles’s voice broke his stupor.

“So…why are you out in the dark again?”

“Walking the dogs,” Derek said, quickly. Thank god dogs couldn’t talk, Castor would definitely have ratted him out.

“They always get midnight walks?”

“I couldn’t sleep.”

Stiles finally pushed himself to his feet.

“Well, that’ll teach me to go wandering around in the dark, now I know these guys are out and about.”

“No, it’s fine.”

Derek sure what exactly he was saying was fine.

“Were we being really loud by the way?” Stiles asked, pointing over Derek’s shoulder to the small group, who had all gone very quiet. In fact Derek hadn’t told Stiles, but he was sure he’d seen a few tall figures slinking away through the grass once they’d heard his voice call back the dogs.

“Who?” Derek asked. Stiles flashed him a grin.

“You don’t have to lie dude. I know we were being really loud, sorry. We’ll keep it down. It’s just it’s the first day off I’ve had since I worked here. Isaac’s off tomorrow too, and Boyd was handing out the whisky. I mean…er…”

“Boyd’s not going to get into trouble for giving you alcohol underage. At least, not unless you fall in the lake and drown yourselves.”

“Well my friend Scott is here too, so there’s a few of us sharing.”

“Not my business,” Derek said, deciding to keep his eyes on his dogs and not on Stiles’s flushed face and blown pupils.

“Hey, do you want to come over? I’m sure we still have some whiskey left. You’re welcome to join.”

Derek couldn’t help himself looking up at that. Something ached dully in his chest, like a healing bruise right behind his rib cage.

“No. I’ve got to go.”

“Oh. Ok,” Stiles said. He scratched at the back of his neck, “Ok, see you around.”

Derek nodded stiffly. He grabbed Castor’s collar and whistled for Artemis to follow him. He was a few steps away when he stopped and turned back to Stiles.

“Your fly’s open, by the way.”

Stiles’s hands immediately flew to his crotch to zip himself back up, “Oh, er, thanks. Bye.”

Derek pulled himself away before he said anything else. He didn’t turn around to check but going by hearing he was pretty sure that Stiles didn’t move to the others until Derek was too far away to be seen. He didn’t know what that meant. Probably nothing.

 

* * *

 

 

Stiles had woken up in a stable exactly three times in his life. The first was when he was eleven and on the ‘Be a Better Citizen Camp’ challenge to help clear out the local stables, which ironically one day would become the Marshes where he’d end up working part time. He’d been tired after a whole day of manual labour that his eleven year old frame wasn’t used to and he had decided to bed down in the clean straw and take a nap. He’d woken up to the sight of two pale, beautiful legs supporting the equally beautiful body of Lydia Martin, her even more beautiful face glaring down at him.

The second time had been at the Marshes whilst helping to take care of a sick horse. He’d been nudged awake a little too hard by Lahey and admonished for not paying attention.

This was the third time. And it was even more painful than a kick from Lahey. There was also regret and disgust and self-loathing and a lot of straw in his mouth. He levered his head up as best he could and tried to spit the straw from his tongue. Not far across from him there were two more bodies lost in the battle with a bottle of whiskey. Isaac was spread out on his back snoring loudly, one arm thrown over Scott’s back. Scott was lying face first in the straw, but after a cursory check Stiles managed to establish that he was in fact breathing. That was good, breathing was good.

The stable door screeched as it opened and let in more hideous light. Oh god, what time was it? He was supposed to be in charge of setting the alarm and waking them all up before the first members of staff were set to arrive.

He found his phone lying in the straw next to him, completely drained of battery.

“Oh _god_.”

“Morning sunshines,” someone said slyly. Stiles squinted through the sun.

“Liam?”

“Come on, we’ve given you as long as we can. Deaton will be up doing the rounds in half an hour.”

“Thank you Liam.”

“Don’t mention it. Except of course I expect you to return the favour for me one day.”

“More than happy to.”

Once Isaac was roused they managed to drag Scott to Stiles’s room between the two of them. Stiles knew there was no point actually trying to wake the guy. Hungover Scott looked just like dead Scott. They dropped the dead weight onto Stiles’s bed and somehow the two of them managed to painstakingly inch their way onto it too, so that the three of them were piled up in a tangle of limbs and groaning. A few moments later they were back to sleep.

They woke up sometime around midday and decided that food was the answer. They ignored the jeers and taunts of the rest of the stable staff and headed out to the staff car park. Isaac was squinting so much that his eyes were closed, and Stiles was exceedingly grateful that he had sunglasses on him.

“Wait, wait,” he croaked, throwing out an arm to stop them, “I don’t think any of us are good to drive. I think I might puke on the steering wheel, and I bet we are all still over the limit.”

“Then how are we going to get into town?”

That was when a sleek black car came into view, all high-end wash and polish and tinted windows. The driver’s window rolled down and Erica flashed her teeth at them with a wild little grin, “Get in losers, we’re going shopping.”

It turned out that whilst the rest of them had got steaming drunk, Boyd and Erica had actually taken it pretty steady and had stopped drinking long before they did. She took great joy in rubbing that in their faces as she drove them into Beacon Hills.

“If you puke on my interior Stiles I swear I will get Deaton to dock your pay to cover it,” she snarled at him.

“That’s why I said I should go shotgun,” Stiles wailed from where he had his head pressed against the cold glass window.

Scott was on the other side of the backseat with his head hanging out of the open window.

“I think Isaac needed the front seat sweetie,” Erica said, leaning over a hand to pet Isaac’s curls gently. He was sitting with his head between his knees and had been deathly silent the entire journey.

“How come you aren’t threatening him about throwing up in your car?”

“Isaac knows me well enough to be scared of me. He wouldn’t dare.”

Stiles was pretty sure he was scared enough of her too, but didn’t argue. She drove them to a place that Erica called the best burger restaurant in town. It was in the north of Beacon Hills and Stiles and Scott had never been, but with the hangover they had the food was heavenly.

By the time Stiles had eaten most of his burger he was feeling more human. The gallon of coke had been a help too. Scott was more awake now, practically perky. Isaac looked a little less like death warmed up; he was even joining in with the conversation and hadn’t had an emergency dash to the bathrooms for a good half an hour.

“Good hey?”

“These are amazing, Erica.”

“I’m a good judge of burgers. I’ve been looking for an excuse to come here again for a while and you guys provided a perfect one.”

“Don’t personal assistants work weekends as well? What if Peter needs you?”

“He’s visiting some partners in Los Angeles today. As long as I’ve got my phone with me, it’s fine.”

“What about Boyd?”

“Ugh, he’s working in the office even though it’s a Saturday. I tried to convince him not to, but there you go. Anyway, enough with the boring stuff. I want to dissect last night. Did Hale admit why he was lurking in the grass, Stiles?”

Stiles frowned at her as he chewed his mouthful of curly fries, “He wasn’t lurking. He was walking his dogs.”

Erica curled her lip at the sight of him talking with his mouth stuffed full and handed him a napkin, “Were you raised by wolves?”

“Who walks their dogs at midnight?” Isaac asked.

“Apparently he couldn’t sleep.”

“Well that doesn’t surprise me. I think he survives on about three hours a night. He’s always wandering around the house, or the stables. But what was he doing down there? Do you think he was listening to us? God, now I really am glad that I didn’t divulge in Hale family gossip to you all.”

“Well he had his dogs with him, like I said.”

“Is that the puppy that viciously attacked you?”

“I thought it was a wolf!” Stiles cried, “Seriously, they look _exactly_ like wolves! Does no-one else see that?! It was a terrifying thing to happen right in the middle of having a whizz. Why didn’t you all come to rescue me?”

“We heard Derek. Thought it best not to reveal that we’d all been getting drunk on his property,” Isaac said, “Sorry.”

“He wasn’t mad.”

“Really?”

“No. In fact, I offered for him to come and join us. But he said no.”

“Why would he be mad at us? He’s not an ogre, guys. He knows you work hard and hey, you’re hired exclusively to help his family’s expensive habit of riding horses. And it’s not like you were getting drunk on duty.”

“It’s just embarrassing,” Stiles said with a sigh. He’d finished his burger and was working his way through his curly fries, “I keep bumping into the guy. Like actually bumping into him. And every time I try to be nice, and he just sort of glares at me.”

“Why do you care, Stiles?”

Trust Scott to come up with the most probing question of them all.

“I don’t,” Stiles said, but he could feel the blush on his cheeks.

“If it makes you feel any better Stiles, Derek doesn’t really do ‘friends’. Or even acquaintances. Like Allison, for instance. Derek practically grew up with her but he still gets this pained look on his face when he has to make small talk with her.”

“Uh, where is Allison, by the way?” Scott asked, about as subtle as a smack in the face. Erica smiled into her glass of orange juice.

“Oh, she had practice.”

“Practice?”

“Archery.”

“ _Archery_? Like, bows and arrows?”

“I know, it’s weird isn’t it? But her Dad got her into it when she was little and there’s an archery club not far from Beacon Hills. So when she doesn’t practice on the estate, she goes there. Speaking of Allison,” Erica held out her hand to Scott, “Give me your phone.”

Scott did as he was told. Erica pulled out her own phone and did some tapping with her well-kept nails.

“There.”

“What did you do?”

“Allison asked me to give you her number. Now just text her, or call her, and she’ll have yours.”

“She asked you to do that?”

Erica winked at him.

“Whoa, dude, that went perfectly,” Stiles laughed. Then felt guilty, because Isaac was looking like a kicked puppy on the other side of the table.

Scott was still staring at his phone like he’d just discovered it could talk. When Isaac’s ringtone blurted out of his pocket Scott jumped a mile and dropped his own phone on the floor. Isaac wriggled his out of his pocket and answered, suddenly all pale and sweaty again.

“Hi Dad…No, no I’m still at work…I left you a voicemail…no, I’m sorry, I just thought you’d get the message…I’m sorry…yeah, it was a sick horse, Deaton asked me to stay up with him to watch it…no…no, I don’t…I know but-…I can’t, I left my car at the stables. Here, I mean, here, at the stables.”

Stiles was beginning to feel distinctly uncomfortable listening to this conversation. He felt like he had got to know Isaac quite well over the last month, and their conversation about the losses in their family had definitely brought them closer together. But Isaac had never really spoken about his Dad, which was strange, as he was the only member of his family left and the person Isaac lived with. Stiles was pretty sure he talked about his Dad a good portion of the time, and he wasn’t even living with him anymore.

“I know…I’m sorry…no…no, I-…yes…ok…ok…Er, maybe a few more hours? I’ll ask Deaton…ok Dad…bye.”

He put the phone down carefully on the table, “Sorry.”

Stiles had a very cold feeling in his stomach all of a sudden. And it was nothing to do with a hangover. Isaac was all curled in on himself again, hands lost under the table, keeping his eyes on his empty plate.

“I’d better go. I need to get back to the stables to get my car then get home.”

“Everything ok?” Stiles asked.

“Oh yeah, fine. Just…I left my Dad a message to say I’d be at work last night and I don’t think he got it. So he was just worried where I was.”

“You told him you were working?”

“Couldn’t really tell him the truth, could I?” he said with a false little laugh.

“Why not?” Erica asked, a little darkly, “You’re nineteen, Isaac.”

Isaac just blinked back at her for a moment then carried on as though he hadn’t heard her, “And sometimes he needs to borrow my car, so he wants it back.”

“Why does he need to use your car sometimes?” Stiles asked, despite everything in him telling him not to.

“Oh, er, he’s a vet. And he does a lot of onsite calls, and my car’s a four by four. So it’s easier to get onto farms and stuff.”

Which only half made sense.

“That’s cool, that your Dad’s a vet,” Scott said. Stiles didn’t have to look around to know that his friend had had similar feelings about the look on Isaac’s face and that conversation.

“Yeah. He’s an equine vet, so…that’s how I got into horses.”

Stiles wanted to ask why an equine vet needed a four by four when he’d be treating the horses in a stable yard nine times out of ten, but kept his mouth shut.

“You need me to give you a ride back to the stables?”

“No, no, it’s ok, I’ll-”

“Walk? No, you won’t Isaac. You won’t get back until midnight if you do that. I’ll drive you back now and you can grab your car. I’m sure you’re under the limit now, you’ll be fine.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure. What about you guys?”

“We’ll come back with you, I’ll grab the Jeep and Scott can get his bike. Then we’ve got a day of gaming and sleeping planned, and I’m gonna surprise my Dad.”

Isaac was already up out of his seat and pulling out his wallet, suddenly eager to get moving. Stiles felt guilty that he was so excited to get back to his Dad. Isaac looked anything but.

By the time Isaac was saying goodbye to them in the staff car park and diving for his car Stiles felt hot all over with guilt. And anger. He didn’t really know what he was accusing Isaac’s Dad of in his mind, but it wasn’t good. He just got a feeling off Isaac that something wasn’t right. And it would explain a lot about the way Isaac behaved.

“Hey Erica,” Stiles said as she left the car to wave them goodbye, “What’s Isaac’s last name again? I never asked and I’ve not heard it.”

“Lahey,” she said distractedly as thumbed a bit of dirt off her sunglasses.

Lahey. Like the vet Lahey that Stiles had so despised at the Marshes.

“Oh.”

“Right my chickadees, I’m off. Nice to meet you, Scott. And I’ll see you around Stiles. If I don’t see you over the next week then I’ll probably bump into you at the staff summer fair. Ask Isaac about it.”

She blew them a kiss and folded herself back into the car to drive over to the Hale house and park her baby in a place more befitting its status.

Stiles raised a hand to wave her goodbye, and to Isaac too as he passed them in his. Erica waved back in the windscreen, but Isaac was too distracted to notice.

 

* * *

 

 

Derek spent his weekend with his Mom. Peter was away and it was just him, Laura and Cora on the bed with her. The nurse came in occasionally to discreetly check everything was ok, and it was. Better than it had been in a while. She even engaged with the conversation and the present. Her mind had been in the past for so many months that it was strange to adapt to her newfound interest in the world around her.

“How is Castor doing, Derek? How is training going? You never bring him up anymore.”

‘That’s because last time you told me to take him away’ Derek thought, but didn’t say. He told his Mom all about his puppy, how he was struggling to get him to pay attention despite distractions. She told him the problems that they had had with Ares when he was a puppy. Derek hadn’t even known that. Ares had grown into the most dependable dog they’d ever had, even more so than Artemis, so Derek was heartened.

In talking to their mother Derek also learnt a lot about what was going on in his sisters’ lives. Cora was on the swim, track _and_ soccer teams at school. Her maths teacher had died suddenly, and Laura had been just as sad as Talia to hear that, Mrs Bryer being the best teacher at that school by far according to the three of them. Cora also did a lot of bitching about Miss Blake, and Derek even chipped in to admit that he didn’t like her. Talia had just laughed softly.

Laura had been rather more cagey, leaving topics around employment and the particular secret that she had kept from her family for so long. Instead she talked about her friends, the ones Talia had known since Laura was in pigtails, and updated their Mom on Beacon Hills gossip.

Derek talked about work, and yes Peter was fine to work for, no he wasn’t working him too hard, no he wouldn’t snitch on his uncle to her if he did. He knew it would work, if he tried it, because if there was one person in the world Peter was frightened of it was his older sister, but Derek wouldn’t dare. He was an adult, he couldn’t go running to his Mom just because uncle Peter was mean to him. After all it wasn’t like he didn’t expect it from him. Peter had played rough with Derek all their lives. Laura was a little too similar to Peter for them to get along and Cora was always the baby who Peter could spoil rotten. Derek and he, however, were not that far from one another in terms of age and they’d had a combative, almost brotherly relationship whilst Derek was growing up. That had changed once Peter had gone to college and saw himself as much older and wiser than Derek was or ever would be, but the memories were still there. Talia had always told her son that Derek reminded Peter of their brothers. There were three siblings in between Talia and Peter: a sister Madeleine who moved to Australia at the age of eighteen and rarely came back to visit; a brother Benjamin who had become a successful coffee chain owner, sold up and now lived in a remote lakeside cabin with his husband Connor; and another brother Lawrence who had died aged eighteen. Derek didn’t exactly know how. It was always just referred to as ‘Lawrence’s accident’. Derek had guessed it had something to do with drink driving (though he was never sure if it was Lawrence who had been doing it or if someone drink driving had killed him), seeing as Peter and his parents had been pretty severe with their lectures to the kids on that topic. Not that most parents wouldn’t be, but he always thought he saw a particular pain in his mother’s eyes when she talked to them about it. Apparently Lawrence, Peter and Benjamin had been very close as the three boys of the family. When Benjamin went to college it was just Peter and Lawrence. Then Lawrence died young, and suddenly Peter was by himself with two sisters. It was no wonder Peter had latched on to Derek as a kid, even though he was younger than Peter, if he saw a spark of his brothers in him.

Derek didn’t talk to his mother about polo. That was a no-go topic. Their Dad had played polo. And after all it was their mother’s grief over their father that had put her in this position.

He’d died when Derek was fifteen and life hadn’t been the same again, of course, but his Mom had made it as normal as possible. She had got on with the family business but still tried her best to fill the at-home parent role his Dad had previously had. The company had flourished, the children had got on with their lives despite the emptiness that now hung over the house. Peter had helped. Everyone had helped. It had been awful and the worst time of their lives, but it had been ok too. But three years later their Mom started to show signs that things were actually no longer ok. Not with her.

That weekend Derek had felt the most rested he’d done in a long time. The three of them had even slept in their Mom’s room: Laura and Cora in the bed with her and Derek on the small futon at the bottom where the nurse or Talia’s friend Natalie Martin would sleep some nights. And Derek had actually slept. Artemis and Castor had crawled in when the door was opened during the day and refused to leave, seeming to enjoy the warm darkness of the room as well. They’d slept on the floor underneath Derek, his hands dug into their fur.

It was too good to last that long though. By Sunday evening their mother was short tempered and wistful again. The nurse started to take up the spot by the bed once more and Derek ushered the dogs out after being shouted at to take them outside. He left around dinner time, promising to visit her tomorrow, but Talia didn’t react. Laura and Cora left eventually too, and life went back to its usual rhythm.

Derek was hunting the staff kitchen when he came across Isaac and Stiles doing the same.

“Sorry, Derek,” Isaac mumbled, dropping the tupperware box he had in his hand, “We were just, er…”

“Mr Harris said we were too late for dinner,” Stiles said, not looking anywhere near as guilty as Isaac did, “But we were _two minutes_ late. It’s completely bogus. And it’s my fault Isaac’s late, I needed his help with something. So we’re just seeing if there’s any leftovers.”

There was. Ennis always made a few more portions more for the Hale children in case Pablo’s dinners didn’t hit the spot. Silently Derek raised a hand and beckoned them over. Isaac looked just about ready to fall over. Derek tried not to think about it too much. Would any of the staff really see him as the sort of person that would sack them on the spot?

He lead them down a small corridor into one of the walk in fridges and pulled two big tupperwares off the shelves. He shoved them into Stiles’s hands.

“Go and put three portions in a pan and warm on the hob. I’m going to find a few more things.”

Stiles did as he was told. Isaac looked a little less like he was going to throw up.

Derek collected a few things that they could put together with the bulk of the meal easily and shut the fridge securely behind him. Stiles had got the pan on and was warming the beef stew through. Derek filled another pan with water and dropped in some broccoli and peas. Ok, so he complained about Pablo’s healthy eating, but he wasn’t an animal.

“Thanks Derek,” Stiles said, breaking the surprisingly easy silence that had settled around them.

“What if Mr Harris catches us?” Isaac asked, trying to sound blasé about it and failing. Derek saw Stiles give Isaac a soft look out of the corner of his eye that he couldn’t read. It was then that he noticed the shiner on Isaac’s face. It was a fresh, nasty bruise around his eye but it marred the whole side of his face. It was stark against his pale skin and didn’t really fit in with the innocent curls and frightened gaze.

“Mr Harris shouldn’t have a problem with me cooking myself some dinner and sharing it with the two of you.”

“Yeah ‘shouldn’t’ is the operative word in that sentence,” Stiles huffed, “That guy is a stickler for the rules.”

“Well when it comes to setting the rules, I’m above Harris. So you’re fine.”

Isaac nodded gently. Derek didn’t know whether to ask him about the bruise. It was surely from work. It was that sort of an occupation. It’d be rude to ask, surely?

“Oh man that smells amazing,” Stiles said, breaking his thoughts to bits. He was leaning over the pot and inhaling deeply, “That Ennis guy can really cook.”

“He really can,” Isaac enthused, “Best cook ever.”

“Why are you down here snaffling food, Derek? Did you miss your dinner time too?”

“Something like that,” Derek said, stirring the stew.

Stiles was distracted from drooling over the stew by Castor and Artemis who had shot into the room in a blur of fur.

“There are my new best friends!” Stiles said, bending down to pet and stroke them both. Even Artemis wrapped himself round and round Stiles’s legs in an attempt to get some attention.

“Castor’s so big now,” Isaac said as he bent down to scratch the puppy behind the ears, “When are you going to start bringing him down to the stables more often?”

At the moment Castor was allowed to see the more seasoned, less easily ruffled horses on a short lead every once in a while. He went out on hacks with Derek riding Lunar or another chilled out polo pony, but Derek didn’t want her to be going near any of the younger or more skittish horses just yet. Artemis had developed a sixth sense for which horses wouldn’t like him and knew exactly how to behave in the stable yard. Castor, on the other hand, did not.

“Soon. Once I know he’ll actually listen to me when there’s other things to distract him.”

The three of them ate in companionable silence, broken only when Isaac checked the time and started to gabble about getting back home.

“Oh shit, it’s eight, I’ve got to, er, sorry, thanks Derek, but I have to go home.”

He dropped his phone when he missed his pocket and banged his hip against the counter as he headed for the door.

“Bye Stiles, see you tomorrow. Bye Derek.”

* * *

 

Stiles waited until Isaac had left before looking over at Derek, who was staring after Isaac’s retreating figure with a knot of concern between his brows.

“Do you and Isaac know each other well?” Stiles tried, shovelling in his last mouthful of food.

“I wouldn’t say well.”

“Do you know his Dad?”

It was Derek’s turn to give a searching look.

 “Why?”

“I just…well, I sort of knew him from my old job. He was our vet. Didn’t like him, to be honest. He was rough with the horses and didn’t seem like a very nice guy. Isaac doesn't seem to have taken after him at all.”

“Good,” Derek said, with force.

“Isaac told me you knew his brother.”

“We played basketball together.”

Derek didn’t seem to want to go into it any further so Stiles left it there. He helped Derek clear up and it wasn’t until he was halfway through drying up their cutlery whilst Derek washed in the sink that he realised they had spent the time in friendly, easy chat.

They talked mostly about the horses. Stiles mentioned a few things that he had noticed about some of the polo ponies, and quizzed Derek on some’s temperaments and behaviour in previous games. Derek didn’t exactly say he was impressed, but he certainly didn’t shut Stiles’s chatter down. In fact, once or twice, Stiles could have sworn he saw him smile. It made his face look completely different; it fell open with a brightness that Stiles wouldn’t have said it was capable of. It was clear that everyone had got at least that right about Derek: his biggest passion was horses.

“When are you playing next?”

“The summer is full of exhibition matches and fundraisers. I’m playing at the Whittemore’s fundraiser next week.”

“Another chance to beat Jackson then,” Stiles said slyly. Derek smirked.

“We’re playing on the same team, unfortunately.”

“Damn. Well, a polo match is a dangerous place, a mallet could go swinging the wrong way.”

“You’re encouraging me to hit my own team member?”

“It’s Jackson,” Stiles said, flourishing the sentence with a wave of the damp tea towel, “Of _course_ I am.”

“How do you even know Jackson?”

“Remember, he threatened me in the stables at your family’s polo match? I clearly looked like hired help, which meant he was allowed to be a douche canoe.”

Derek looked up, bemused, “Douche canoe?”

“I’m a poet.”

“You’re ridiculous.”

Stiles flicked him with the tea towel. The minute he did it he realised how mildly erotic the whole thing was. Seriously, flicking your crush with a wet towel whilst he was up to his elbows in soapy water?

Derek splashed him with a bit of water and, well, Stiles wasn’t going to say no to a bit of playful, innocent flirting.

“There you are,” a voice said, interrupting Stiles’s plan to get Derek’s t-shirt wet. I mean come on, who wouldn’t want to see those pecs all drenched? And perhaps he had the idea to get it so wet that Derek would have to take it off. That would have been all kinds of wonderful.

But then Mr Harris was standing behind them with his arms folded and Stiles and gone red up to the tips of his ears, because he could swear that the look in Mr Harris’s eye said that he saw every dirty fantasy Stiles had been dreaming.

“Oh, hello Mr Harris.”

“What exactly are you doing, Stilinski?”

Stiles was about to reply when Derek turned from the sink, drying his hands with a towel, “Mr Harris.”

“Derek, I didn’t see you there.”

“Can we help you?”

“Well no, I was just…”

“Good, because Stiles and I are busy right now.”

The three stood in silence for a moment, and Stiles noted that Derek didn’t even need to pull himself to his full height to make his feelings clear.

“Of course,” Mr Harris said, with a small nod of his head. He gave Stiles a glare out of the corner of his eye and then stalked back out of the room.

“Thanks Derek.”

“What did I do?”

“Mr Harris was about to go into full ‘house rules’ mode. Anyway, I’d better get back to the stables.”

Derek nodded. Over his shoulder Stiles saw Laura enter the kitchen where Harris had left. She looked them both over for a second, then called, “Derek.”

“Yeah?”

“Peter’s on the phone, he wants to speak to you.”

“I’m coming. Castor, Artemis, come on.”

“Bye dogs,” Stiles said, scratching their heads as they passed.

“See you later, Derek.”

Derek glanced over his shoulder and if Stiles wasn’t mistaken, he was sure he could see a smile somewhere in his eyes.

“Bye Stiles.”

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Would love to know what you all think! Thank you so much for the wonderful comments and kudos so far, I love seeing them.


End file.
